Parents of 545 kids separated at border haven’t been found
WASHINGTON — Advocates for immigrants say they still haven’t found the parents of545 minors separated from their families starting three years ago during President Donald Trump’s immigration crackdown at the U.s.-mexico border.
The 545 children are among more than 1,500 separated from their parents as far back as July 1, 2017, and they include cases that were part of a pilot immigration program at the time and weren’t immediately disclosed to the federal judge who ordered the families reunited in June 2018, American Civil Liberties Union lawyer Lee Gelernt said.
More than two-thirds of the minors are from Central America, and the children are believed to be with sponsors or other family members in the United States.
“Unfortunately, there’ s an enormous amount of work yet tobe done to find these families — work that will be difficult, but we are committed to doing,” Gelernt said after filing information about the children with the federal court. “Not only are we still looking for hundreds of families, but we would have never even known about these families if thetrumpadministration had its way.”
Department of Homeland Security officials said Wednesday that the government has been working to reunite the children with their families but has found in some cases that parents don’t want to claim them, a move that allows the children to remain in the United States.
Justice Department lawyers have said most of the separated children already have been released to parents or legal guardians.
“Dhs has taken every step to facilitate the reunification of these families where the parents wanted such reunification to occur,” DHS spokesman Chase Jennings said.
Health and Human Services said Wednesday that all of the 545 minors were “appropriately discharged” fromits shelters — to a legal guardian or a parent— before June2018, when the judgeorderedthe reunifications.
The ACLU has demanded the names of all separated parents and children andwants to confirm all reunifications. The organization, which filed the lawsuit that led to the judge’s order to reunite the families, estimates that as many as 5,400 children have been separated from their families since Trump took office.
More than half were split up from May to June in 2018, when the DHS and the Justice Department rolled out the administration’s “zero tolerance” policy to deter a surge of asylum-seeking families at the border.
The ACLU and others say the effort to locate the still-separated families has been hindered by incomplete government reports as well as conditions on the ground in the children’s native lands, including gang violence, remote villages and now the coronavirus pandemic.
With the elections less than two weeks away, the updated numbers ignited fresh outrage about one of the Trump administration’s biggest debacles, and one that sharply divided members of his republican party. Democrats seized on the new filing to remind voters that the family separations remain unresolved.
“Every day, it seems we uncover new horrors perpetrated by President Trump and his administration,” Democratic presidential nominee Joe Biden tweeted.
Lawmakers and advocates for immigrants said Wednesday that the government should do more to ensure the families are reunited.
“I was very shaken by the number ,” said Efren Olivares, who, as director of the racial and economic justice program at the texas civil Rights Project, worked with separated families in the Rio Grande Valley. “This was torture.”