Feds hasten family efforts
Deadline looms for reunification of kids, parents
The federal government announced Thursday that it had reunited 364 immigrants with their children but has yet to determine whether more than 900 parents are eligible to rejoin their kids, who range from 5 to 17 years old.
Of the 908 parents not eligible to rejoin their children, 91 had “prohibitive” criminal records or otherwise were deemed unsuitable for reunification, the government said in court filings before a federal judge in California.
The latest figures were released as the government, under strict orders from U.S. District Judge Dana M. Sabraw, of the Southern District of California, ramped up its pace for reunifying more than 2,500 immigrant children with their parents following the Trump administration’s short-lived practice of separating families at the nation’s southern border under what it called a “zero tolerance” policy for people entering the country illegally.
News of the family separations provoked widespread bipartisan furor and international condemnation, leading the president to suddenly end the practice last month. But his executive order did not specify how to reunite families.
Sabraw has set a July 26 deadline for all immigrant children removed by border enforcement authorities to be reunited with their parents.
The government said Thursday it had cleared another 848 parents, suggesting they would be reunified soon.
The increased pace this week follows more than two months of chaos and disarray in which parents and children could not find each other. Earlier this week, the government had yet to identify parents for more than 70
aged 5 and older. Advocates say the government’s lack of planning for — and sometimes apparent resistance to — reuniting families has been startling.
“There was a stunning lack of concern,” said Wendy Young, president of Kids in Need of Defense, a nonprofit providing legal counsel to migrant children. “How many systems are in place across the United States to match people up? Even matching a ticket when someone is coming into a concert hall. It’s not that hard. … It was a lack of political will.”
In a sworn statement filed with the court last week, a top official over the agency in charge of immigrant children said the judge’s tight deadlines for reuniting children were forcing the government to shorten its vetting process.
Judge’s stern rebuke
Christopher Meekins, deputy assistant secretary for preparedness and response at the Department of Health and Human Services, suggested it could result in placing children with people who are not their biological parents, or in other risky situations.
Sabraw, who is overseeing the reunification under a lawsuit filed by the American Civil Liberties Union, reprimanded the government for not understanding the court’s orders or “acting in defiance of them.”
“It appears (Meekins) is attempting to provide cover to Defendants for their own conduct in the practice of family separation, and the lack of foresight and infrastructure necessary to remedy the harms caused by that practice,” the judge wrote. “Safe and timely reunification … can, and will, be done.”
Three ranking Democratic members of the House Committees on the Judiciary, Oversight and Government Reform, and Homeland Security on Thursday blasted the Trump administration after receiving closed-door briefings in which they asked whether a reunification plan was in place when Attorney General Jeff Sessions announced the socalled “zero tolerance” plan in April.
Commander Jonathan White, a deputy director at the Office of Refugee Resettlement in charge of migrant children, said there had not been a “specialized plan,” according to the lawmakers. Planning began only after the court order in late June, they said.
“They had no inter-agency plan in place to reunite children with their parents,” U.S. Reps. Elijah Cummings of Maryland, Jerrold Nadler of New York and Bennie G. Thompson of Mississippi, said in a joint statement. “Even if they believed their new policy was the right one, how could they have been so heartless not to have planned to reunite these children with their parents? Their admissions demonstrate a new low in the Trump Administration’s cruelty, inhumanity, and utter incompetence.”
The administration’s plan to reunify thousands of children between the ages of 5 and 17 at eight designated centers, including in San Antonio and the Rio Grande Valley, was released July 15, two days after the judge’s criticism.
It came more than two weeks after Sabraw first ordered families to be reunited and followed a disorganized attempt to rejoin 103 children under the age of 5. The government missed the court’s deadline for that age group by two days and was only able to reunify about half. The remainder, the government said, were not immediately eligible for a variety of reasons, including the deportation of their parents or because their parents had been suspected of or charged with crimes.
‘Complete and utter chaos’
“It was complete and utter chaos,” said Jodi Goodwin, an immigration attorney in Harlingen who represents separated parents at the Port Isabel detention center. “It seems like there was no plan in place at the beginning. The plan was formulated after the judge’s orders.”
Four days before the government was supposed to reunite the youngest group of children July 10, Justice Department lawyers could not tell the court exactly how many separated children the government had in custody.
While ACLU lawyers and immigration advocates attempted to develop a complete list of separated parents and children to check against the government’s tally, government officials went through case files by hand to match parents and children.
Part of the complication appeared to be that once Customs and Border Protection agents separated families, parents went to the custody of the Justice Department, and then Homeland Security detention centers; children were placed in the care of Health and Human Services. No common tracking number existed among the agencies to systematically keep families linked.
Michelle Brané, director of migrant rights at the Women’s Refugee Commission, said the government’s list remains incomplete because it only includes separated children in its custody on the date of the judge’s order in June. Many might have been rechildren leased to adult sponsors, usually relatives, before then.
“This is not the total list of separated families by any means,” she said.
It is unclear what is being done to find deported parents. Those who came here fleeing danger might not return to the same place, complicating efforts to locate them. The government is expected to provide a list of parents who have been removed to the court Friday.
White, the commander with the Office of Refugee Resettlement, testified in court Monday that an inter-agency data team is analyzing information from all three federal agencies overseeing immigrant adults and their children.
Emotional damage
Of 2,551 children between the ages of 5 and 17 in government custody, he said parental matches had been confirmed in 2,480 cases as of that date. Parents had not been located for 71 children in that age group, he said.
Another 12 parents of children younger than 5 have been deported.
The court temporarily has halted the government from quickly removing any more parents after the ACLU argued that it needs time to discuss the children’s immigration cases and decide how to proceed. More than 700 parents have final orders of removal, the government said in its filing Thursday, meaning they could be deported within days.
As federal officials work up to reunifying 200 families a day, advocates said the trauma inflicted on the children came into focus. Some were released with scabies and lice. A separated mother in Miami filed a lawsuit after her son lacerated his head during his stint in a federal shelter and was hospitalized without her being notified.
With many children, the damage was more emotional.
“It’s really difficult,” Goodwin said. ‘They don’t warm up to their parents very quickly.”