Still no word on when families will be reunited

‘Zero tolerance’ policy on immigrants easing

McALLEN, Texas – Two days after President Donald Trump ordered an end to the separation of families at the border, federal authorities were still working Friday on a plan to reunite an estimated 1,800 children with their parents and keep immigrant households together.

Immigration and Customs Enforcement posted a notice saying it was looking into creating 15,000 beds for use in detaining immigrant families. A day earlier, the Pentagon said it was drawing up plans to house as many as 20,000 migrants on military bases.

Beyond that, however, there was nothing but frustration and worry for many of the parents separated from their children and placed in detention centers for illegally entering the country over the past several weeks.

Some parents struggled to get in touch with youngsters being held, in many cases hundreds of miles away, in places such as New York and Chicago. Some said they didn’t even know where their children were.

Trump took a hard line on the crisis, accusing the Democrats of telling “phony stories of sadness and grief.”

“We cannot allow our country to be overrun by illegal immigrants,” the president tweeted.

More than 2,300 children were taken from their families at the border in recent weeks. A senior Trump administration official said that about 500 of them have been reunited since May.

In the meantime, federal authorities appear to be easing up on the Trump administration’s “zero tolerance” policy of prosecuting all adults caught illegally entering the U.S. – though the Justice Department flatly denied there has been any change.

The federal public defender’s office for the region that covers El Paso to San Antonio said that prosecutors will no longer charge parents with illegally entering the U.S. if they have children with them.