Illinois Dems blast Trump over blown deadline to reunite migrant kids
U.S. Sen. Tammy Duckworth, DIll., and three Illinois congressmen lambasted the Trump administration Friday for failing to reunify the more than 2,000 children separated from their families at the U.S.Mexico border as part of its “zero tolerance” enforcement policy by Thursday’s court-mandated deadline.
As of Thursday, the government had successfully reunified 1,442 children with their relatives.
But 711 children separated from their parents or other family members are still in government custody. U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement has deported at least 431 of those children’s family members.
Seventeen children still waiting to be reunified with their parents are sheltered in detention centers in Illinois as of Thursday, according to ProPublica Illinois.
At a press conference outside the Kluczynski Federal Building, Duckworth questioned the Trump administration’s resolve in reunifying all separated families.
“How many court orders does the Trump administration need in order to reunite these families and to fix a problem of their own making?” Duckworth asked. “This is something no mother should ever experience and no child should go through.”
Congressmen Bobby L. Rush, D-Ill.; Raja Krishnamoorthi, DIll.; and Brad Schneider, D-Ill., echoed Duckworth’s concerns during a separate news conference in Bronzeville.
“We took these children from their parents, and we have a moral and legal obligation to find their parents wherever they are,” Krishnamoorthi said.
The four members of Congress also questioned what they called a lack of transparency between Heartland Alliance, the agency contracted by the Office of Refugee Resettlement to house and care for migrant children, and the public about its operations.
“I live a block away from [one of their facilities] and didn’t know about it until recently,” Rush said.
Heartland Alliance runs nine detention shelters in the Chicago area for unaccompanied migrant children apprehended at the border.
In June, the Sun-Times first reported Heartland Alliance was housing dozens of children separated from their parents at the U.S.Mexico border. Heartland Alliance has since come under scrutiny for allegations of abuse and maltreatment at its facilities, in particular at its Des Plaines center known as Casa Guadalupe.
Duckworth said Heartland Alliance unexpectedly canceled her planned tour of Casa Guadalupe on Friday.
“What are they hiding?” she said. Heartland Alliance could not be reached for comment Friday afternoon.