2,000 child separations at u.s.-Mexico border
The official tally of separations is now nearly 4,000 children, not including that of March and the beginning of April 2018.
The government said on Friday that 1,995 children were separated from 1,940 adults at the US-Mexico border between 19 April and 31 May, as the Trump administration implements stricter border enforcement policies.
The number represents a dramatic uptick from the nearly 1,800 family separations that Reuters reported had happened from October 2016 through February of this year. The official tally of separations is now nearly 4,000 children, not including March and the beginning of April 2018. In May, US Attorney General Jeff Sessions announced a ‘zero tolerance’ policy in which all those apprehended entering the United States illegally would be criminally charged, which generally leads to children being separated from their parents. The families were all separated so the parents could be criminally prosecuted, said a spokesman for the Department of Homeland Security, who declined to be named, on a call with reporters.
“Advocates want us to ignore the law and give people with families a free pass,” said the official. “We no longer exempt entire classes of people.”
The Department of Homeland Security did not immediately respond to a request to provide a breakdown of the age of children separated from their parents and held in custody, but the official said they do not separate babies from adults. A border patrol official on the call said children are sometimes separated from the adults they are travelling with if officials suspect the relationship is fraudulent.
Reuters reported that around 13% of family separations in the 17-month period through February were because of alleged fraud.
Government officials on the call did not go into detail about where the children are being held. Once children are separated, they are treated as unaccompanied minors under the care of the Department of Health and Human Services, which houses them in government facilities, puts them in temporary foster care, or releases them to adult sponsors in the United States.
The moves by the government to separate families have been widely decried by medical professionals, the United Nations, and a wide swath of US religious leaders. Attorney General Jeff Sessions addressed the concern from some church leaders in a speech on Thursday, citing a biblical passage that talked about following the law.
Immigration advocates have also criticised a recent move by Sessions that narrowed who can qualify for asylum in immigration court in the United States.
The officials on the call said the stricter standards would also apply to the initial screening process to determine whether immigrants crossing the border have a “credible fear” of returning to their home countries. Yemen’s Iran- aligned Houthi movement fought on Saturday to keep a Saudiled coalition from taking full control of the airport in the port city of Hodeidah, in an offensive the UN says could trigger a famine imperilling millions of lives.
The alliance, led in the Hodeidah assault by the United Arab Emirates, is attempting to capture the well-defended city and push the Houthis out of their sole Red Sea port, in the biggest battle of the war. “Death and poverty are all around us. We are scared to leave our homes after the fighting reached the airport,” Abdelqader, who used to work at a cement plant, said by telephone from Hodeidah. “No work, no salary, we are just waiting for God’s mercy.”
Ground troops including Emiratis, Sudanese and Yemenis from various factions have surrounded the main airport compound but have not seized it, a source in the coalition-allied Yemeni military and residents said.
Houthi spokesman Mohammed Abdul-Salam said Saudi-led forces had not entered Hodeidah airport and warned the assault on the city would undermine