News reader fights back tears while reporting on babies being sent to 'tender age' shelters

MSNBC host Rachel Maddow cried on air as she reported migrant children being sent to ‘tender age’ shelters after they’re separated from their parents at the U.S. border.

According to a Huffington Post report, Maddow cried live on air Tuesday, June 19, while covering a news story from The Associated Press about what's happening to the youngest migrants who are separated from their parents at the southern U.S. border.

The MSNBC host said "this is incredible,” as she began to read a report on the US government taking babies and young children from their parents as they attempted to cross the border from Mexico into America illegally.

The report from the Associated Press that Maddow was unable to read revealed young children were being held in three facilities in Texas. She tried one more time to read the report but she was again too emotional.

“I think I’m going to have to hand this off. Sorry, that does it for us tonight. We’ll see you tomorrow,” she said before abruptly ending her show minutes earlier than planned

After the anchor had regained her composure off-air, she tweeted that she was "sorry" and wrote what she originally intended to say, adding: "I apologize for losing it there for a moment. Not the way I intended that to go, not by a mile."

More than 2,000 children have been taken away from their parents and placed in detention centers after their families were caught trying to cross the border illegally, as Huffington Post reported.

Doctors and lawyers who have visited the shelters said the facilities were fine, clean and safe, but the kids have no idea where their parents are and were hysterical, crying and acting out.

U.S. 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.

The government also plans to open a fourth shelter to house hundreds of young migrant children in Houston. Read more on our Twitter account @amomama_usa.