Climbdown as second chance for immigrants is sought

US PRESIDENT Donald Trump’s administration has agreed to reconsider the asylum claims of 1,000 immigrant parents and children separated at the US border as part of a deal to settle lawsuits over his “zero-tolerance” immigration policy. The settlement, detailed in court documents, represented a victory for rights groups which challenged Mr Trump’s contentious family separation policy aimed at deterring illegal immigration. If approved by US District Judge Dana Sabraw in San Diego, immigrant parents and their children will get a second chance to apply for asylum even if US authorities had previously rejected their claims that they faced a “credible fear of persecution or torture” if sent back to their home countries. More than 1,000 people will be eligible to apply again for asylum under the settlement, according to Muslim Advocates, one of the rights groups that sued the administration. The family separations and the detention of thousands of children, mostly from Guatemala, Honduras and El Salvador, prompted widespread condemnation of Mr Trump’s policy. About 2,500 children and parents were separated before he abandoned the policy in June. Days later, a federal judge ordered the families reunited, a process that is still incomplete. The agreement also leaves open the possibility that some of the hundreds of parents already deported without their children could return to the United States, according to the American Civil Liberties Union, which brought one of the lawsuits. Their claims would be considered on a case-by-case basis.