Administration: 1,820 kids reunited after border split

SAN DIEGO — The Trump administration said Thursday that more than 1,800 children separated at the U.S.Mexico border have been reunited with parents and sponsors but hundreds remain apart, signaling a potentially long wait for anguished families.

The federal government was under a Thursday deadline to reunify more than 2,500 children who were separated at the border from their parents under a new immigration policy designed to deter immigrants from coming here illegally. The policy quickly backfired amid global outrage from political and religious leaders and daily headlines about crying children taken from their parents.

President Donald Trump ended the practice of taking children from parents, but a federal judge in San Diego ordered the government to reunite all the families by the end of day Thursday, but the efforts will continue. U.S. District Judge Dana Sabraw has indicated some leeway given the enormity of the job.

As of Thursday morning, the government said it reunited 1,442 children 5 and older with their parents in U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforce- ment custody. An additional 378 were reunited with parents in different locations around the country or given to sponsors, who are often relatives or close family members.

That leaves about 700 who remain apart, including more than 400 whose parents have been deported, officials say. Those reunions take more time, effort and paperwork as authorities fly children back to Guatemala, El Salvador and Honduras.

The Trump administration insisted it would meet the court deadline by reuniting all of the family members that it deemed eligible for reunification.