Hotline for separated families
Trump administration officials say the US government knows the location of all children in its custody after separating them from their families at the border and is working to reunite them.
A fact sheet on ‘‘zero-tolerance prosecution and family reunification’’ released yesterday by the Department of Homeland Security also says a parent must request that their child be deported with them. In the past, the agency says, many parents have elected to be deported without their children. That may be a reflection of violence or persecution they face in their home countries.
Immigration and Customs Enforcement officials have posted notices in all its facilities advising detained parents who are trying to find their children to call a hotline. The fact sheet doesn’t state how long it might take to reunite families.
How the government would reunite families has been unclear because the families are first stopped by Customs and Border Patrol, with children taken into custody by HHS and adults detained through ICE. Children have been sent to shelters around the country, raising alarm that parents might never know where their children can be found.
The fact sheet states that ICE has implemented an identification mechanism to ensure ongoing tracking of linked family members throughout the detention and removal process; designated detention locations for separated parents and will enhance current processes to ensure communication with children in HHS custody; and coordinated with HHS for the reuniting of the child prior to the parents’ departure from the US.
As of last Thursday, 2053 minors who were separated at the border were being cared for in HHS-funded facilities, the fact sheet said.
On Saturday, days after yielding to pressure to reverse his policy of separating migrant families at the southern border, President Donald Trump returned to the nativist rhetoric that animated his outsider presidential campaign, casting immigrants as threats to ‘‘our citizens.’’
Trump invited families of Americans killed by undocumented immigrants to tell their stories of being ‘‘permanently separated’’ from loved ones.
‘‘These are the stories that Democrats and people that are weak on immigration, they don’t want to discuss, they don’t want to hear, they don’t want to see, they don’t want to talk about,’’ Trump said at the White House.
At the White House event on Saturday, Trump and many of the family members who spoke criticised what they called onesided media coverage that does not focus on their stories.
‘‘We weren’t lucky enough to be separated for five days or 10 days; we’re separated permanently,’’ said Laura Wilkerson, whose son Josh was killed in 2010.
‘‘Any time we want to see or be close to our kids, we go to the cemetery, because that’s where they are.
‘‘We could never speak to them, we can’t Skype with them.’’ – AP, Washington Post