Nicho for 545 Lost Children

Nicho for 545 Lost Children is an indictment of the United States immigration policy that allowed thousands of children who traveled with their families from Central America and across Mexico to seek asylum at the southern American border to be taken forcibly from their parents and imprisoned in for-profit detention facilities. When pressure from citizens around the world pressured the Trump administration to reunite the families, officials were unable to locate any relatives for at least 545 children. A nicho is a form of Latin American folk art, often used in a devotional way to honor a religious figure or other significant person; I constructed my nicho as a protest against the inhumane treatment of these children and as a demand that in its first act of contrition, the incoming American presidential administration leave no stone unturned in the search for their families.