US presenter Rachel Maddow broke down in tears live on air as she reported babies separated from their parents under the Trump administration’s immigration laws were being placed in “tender age” shelters.

The MSNBC anchor struggled with the news three centres in South Texas were holding infant children and toddlers taken from their parents as they attempted to cross the border from Mexico into the United States.

Maddow was unable to read more than a sentence of the report, detailing how infants were being detained at the centres, before starting to cry.

“Trump administration officials have been sending babies and other young children,” she began before attempting to force back the tears.

“Can we put up the graphic of this?” she asks as she continues to well up, adding: “I think I am going to have to hand this off,” as she ends the show.

The report disclosed information from lawyers and medical providers who had visited shelters where migrant children were being held in the Rio Grande Valley, describing play rooms full of crying, preschool age children.

More than 2,300 children are thought to have been forcibly separated from their parents at the US-Mexico border since the White House announced its “zero tolerance” policy to illegal immigration in May this year.

The government has come under fire for the approach after images of children in cages at US Border Patrol processing stations have emerged in recent weeks.

Concerns have also been raised that the US is creating new institutions to hold Central American toddlers authorities have separated from their parents, decades after the nation’s welfare system ended the use of orphanages over fears children may suffer lasting trauma.

“The thought that they are going to be putting such little kids in an institutional setting? I mean it is hard for me to even wrap my mind around it,” said Kay Bellor, of the Lutheran Immigration and Refugee Service, which provides foster care and other services to migrant children.

Undocumented immigration across the US-Mexico border Show all 14 1 /14 Undocumented immigration across the US-Mexico border Undocumented immigration across the US-Mexico border Immigrant children, many of whom are separated form their parents, are housed in Texas' tent city Reuters Undocumented immigration across the US-Mexico border A two-year-old Honduran asylum seeker cries as her mother is searched and detained near the US-Mexico border Getty Undocumented immigration across the US-Mexico border Undocumented migrants ride on the top of a freight train referred to as the beast, or La Bestia Getty Undocumented immigration across the US-Mexico border A cage inside a US Customs and Border Protection detention facility in Texas Reuters Undocumented immigration across the US-Mexico border US Border Patrol Academy All new agents must complete a months-long training course at the New Mexico facility before assuming their posts at Border Patrol stations, mostly along the US-Mexico border Getty Undocumented immigration across the US-Mexico border US-Mexico border fence A group of young men walk along the Mexican side of the US-Mexico border fence in a remote area of the Sonoran Desert Getty Undocumented immigration across the US-Mexico border US-Mexico border fence in the US Man looks through US-Mexico border fence into the US in Tijuana, Mexico Getty Undocumented immigration across the US-Mexico border US-Mexico border fence US Border Patrol agent Sal De Leon stands near a section of the US-Mexico border fence while stopping on patrol on in La Joya, Texas Getty Undocumented immigration across the US-Mexico border US Border Patrol Academy US Border Patrol instructor yells at trainees after their initial arrival to the academy Getty Undocumented immigration across the US-Mexico border Memorial service in Guatemala Families attend a memorial service for two boys who were kidnapped and killed in San Juan Sacatepequez, Guatemala. Crime drives emigration from Guatemala to the United States, as families seek refuge from the danger Getty Undocumented immigration across the US-Mexico border Arrests on the border Undocumented immigrants comfort each other after being caught by Border Patrol agents near the US-Mexico border Getty Undocumented immigration across the US-Mexico border Detention holding facility A boy from Honduras watches a movie at a detention facility run by the US Border Patrol Getty Undocumented immigration across the US-Mexico border Mexican farm workers Mexican migrant workers harvest organic parsley at Grant Family Farms in Wellington, Colorado Getty Undocumented immigration across the US-Mexico border Mexican family in Arizona A Mexican immigrant family sits in the living room of their rented home in Tuscon, Arizona. The family that Arizona's new tough immigrant law had created a climate of fear in the immigrant community. Getty

“Toddlers are being detained.”

US government officials have denied the policy is inhumane or cruel, despite receiving widespread criticism from religious groups, the United Nations and both Republican and Democratic lawmakers.

“We have specialised facilities that are devoted to providing care to children with special needs and tender age children as we define as under 13 would fall into that category,” said Steven Wagner, of the Department of Health and Human Services.

“They're not government facilities per se, and they have very well-trained clinicians, and those facilities meet state licensing standards for child welfare agencies, and they're staffed by people who know how to deal with the needs – particularly of the younger children.”