diff --git a/src/Plugin/migrate_plus/data_parser/SimpleXml.php b/src/Plugin/migrate_plus/data_parser/SimpleXml.php
index 2e51c9a0f3e34cb9013d251527ea692835ee50b4..a33b6a086901abf74cfd0a86bcddc177fbcfd66b 100644
--- a/src/Plugin/migrate_plus/data_parser/SimpleXml.php
+++ b/src/Plugin/migrate_plus/data_parser/SimpleXml.php
@@ -67,7 +67,12 @@ class SimpleXml extends DataParserPluginBase {
     if ($target_element !== FALSE && !is_null($target_element)) {
       foreach ($this->fieldSelectors() as $field_name => $xpath) {
         foreach ($target_element->xpath($xpath) as $value) {
-          $this->currentItem[$field_name][] = (string) $value;
+          if ($value->children() && !trim((string) $value)) {
+            $this->currentItem[$field_name] = $value;
+          }
+          else {
+            $this->currentItem[$field_name][] = (string) $value;
+          }
         }
       }
       // Reduce single-value results to scalars.