US may miss dates to reunite separated immigrant families

The Trump administration argued in a court hearing Friday that it might not be able to fully comply with a federal judge’s order to reunite nearly 3,000 children separated from their parents by the end of the month.

The administration must reunite about 100 children under age 5 by Tuesday and all other minors by July 26. But government lawyers said there is too much work to do and too many questions about the judge’s order to meet his strict deadlines.

During the hearing, Department of Justice lawyer Sarah Fabian said the government is stuck between the court’s strict deadlines and legal requirements that children in government custody be released only into safe environments.

The request for more time came a day after Health and Human Services Secretary Alex Azar held a conference call during which he assured reporters that the administration would reunite all the children who had been separated. Azar criticized the ruling but vowed to meet the court-imposed deadlines.

“We will comply with the artificial deadlines established by the courts,” he said Thursday.

On Friday, Fabian said the government is struggling to complete the time-consuming process of verifying the relationship between parents and children, locating parents who have been deported or released into the U.S., and ensuring that parents who have been found do not have a criminal record or pose a threat to their children.

U.S. District Judge Dana Sabraw, who issued the order to reunite the separated families, said he may extend his deadlines in extreme cases in which parents have been deported or have a criminal background. But he said the government must push ahead not only to reunite the nearly 3,000 children covered by his order but also to establish a system that can be used in future cases.