Migrants reunited with their children
But 40 kids have still not been returned to their parents, despite US court order
MORE than 50 children under the age of five who were taken from their parents at the US-Mexico border were expected to be reunited with them yesterday, lawyers for the federal government told a judge in San Diego on Monday.
About 40 other young children will not be returned to their parents yet despite a court-imposed deadline, because the Trump administration either has not finished matching them with their parents or has not cleared the parents to take custody. Two children have already been reunited with their parents, lawyers said.
US District Judge Dana Sabraw – who last month called the family separation process “chaotic” and set a timetable for the government to reunite the families – said on Monday he was pleased that the Justice Department and the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) had worked together at the weekend to facilitate the return of the children to their parents.
“I am encouraged about the progress,” Judge Sabraw said at a hearing in the US District Court in San Diego. “This is real progress. I’m optimistic that many of these families will be reunited tomorrow.”
He scheduled another hearing for yesterday to get further updates on the reunifications, which he ordered as part of a class-action lawsuit filed by the ACLU. They come amid a tide of national and international outrage over such young children being taken from their parents.
Judge Sabraw had ordered the government to return all children aged four and younger to their parents by yesterday. Federal agencies have until July 26 to return children aged five and older, who are among the “under 3 000” taken from their parents. The government separated the families as part of the Trump administration’s effort to prosecute all immigrants who cross the US-Mexico border illegally, including those who are seeking asylum.
Justice Department attorney Sarah Fabian said the reunifications yesterday would occur at undisclosed locations administered by US Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE), which has custody of the detained parents. Their children have been kept in federally-run shelters and in foster homes.
“The kids are all over the country,” ACLU lawyer Lee Gelernt said. “It may end up being different for the older ones. But for these kids, they’re going to be all over the country.”
The reunited families will then be released and allowed to stay in the US pending further immigration proceedings – the exact opposite of what US President Donald Trump and Attorney-General Jeff Sessions had hoped to accomplish when they launched the “zero tolerance” effort in May.
“ICE will take custody and then release the parent and child together,” Fabian said at Monday’s hearing. “They will not remain in ICE custody,” she added.
Also on Monday, a federal judge in California sharply rebuked the Justice Department for seeking a modification to a long-standing court settlement. The Trump administration had asked for the court’s permission to have ICE keep those families in detention until their cases were adjudicated – a process that takes months and would have gone against previously established terms of the settlement.
Justice Department lawyers had filed an application to US District Judge Dolly Gee more than a week ago, seeking her approval to detain parents and their children together for unspecified periods of time.
The judge called that request “a cynical attempt, on an ex parte basis, to shift responsibility to the judiciary for over 20 years of congressional inaction and ill-considered executive action.”