Sun Sentinel Palm Beach Edition
Migrant family reunification plan remains hazy
Frustrations rise over policy, fate of 2,342 children who have already been separated
WASHINGTON — The day after President Donald Trump claimed he had acted to keep migrant families together, the fate of more than 2,300 children held in custody separate from their parents and that of future asylum-seeking families remained uncertain Thursday.
The confusion ensured the president’s self-inflicted political and humanitarian crisis would continue as government officials, attorneys and immigration advocates struggled to understand and implement the revised policy.
As officials in Washington scrambled to develop a plan to reunite immigrant families, administration
lawyers went to federal court in Los Angeles, seeking a change in previous rulings that have limited how long the government can hold children in custody.
The Justice Department asked the court for “limited emergency relief” that would allow immigration officials to “detain alien minors who have arrived with their parent or legal guardian together in (Immigration and Customs Enforcement) family residential facilities.”
Under current rules, the government can hold children for no more than 20 days, Justice Department officials say.
Under the order Trump signed Wednesday, officials plan to hold as many as 20,000 people who crossed the border illegally — many have asked for asylum in the U.S. — for extended periods in makeshift housing on military bases. Officials have visited four bases in Texas and Arkansas, said Lt. Col. Mike Andrews, a Pentagon spokesman.
Numerous officials throughout the administration declined to answer questions about how that policy would be implemented or how, when or whether family reunifications would take place.
In an indication of the political pressure that moderate Republican elected officials are under, Rep. Mike Coffman, RColo., demanded that Trump fire his top adviser on immigration, White House aide Stephen Miller.
First lady Melania Trump, who privately urged the president to reverse his family separation policy, visited the Upbring New Hope Children’s Shelter in McAllen, Texas. The facility holds 55 migrant children, mostly from Guatemala, including six who had been separated from their parents, officials said. She toured the facility and met for a bit over an hour with officials and some of the children.
“I’m here to learn about your facility,” she said during a conversation with officials inside the shelter. “I’m also here to ask you how I can help to reunite these children with their families as quickly as possible.”
Her visit generated a social media flurry during the day because while boarding her plane to leave Washington, she was seen wearing a jacket that had the words “I really don’t care. Do U?” in white lettering on the back.
Stephanie Grisham, her spokeswoman, told reporters that the issue was overblown. “It’s a jacket. There was no hidden message,” she said.
Her appearance did little to clear up the confusion about the fate of the 2,342 migrant children already separated from their parents and scattered across 17 states.
The president sought again to place the blame on his political opposition.
Democrats “want us to take care of bed space and resources and personnel and take everybody and — you know, like, let’s run the most luxurious hotel in the world for everybody — but they don’t want to give us the money,” he said, as he spoke for more than a halfhour in a sometimes-rambling discourse in the Cabinet Room.
He also lashed out at Mexico, saying that country could block Central Americans from traveling to the U.S. border. “Mexico is doing nothing for us except taking our money and giving us drugs,” he said.
Even with the best of intentions, reuniting children who have been placed in detention overseen by a branch of the Department of Health and Human Services with parents being held by the U.S. Marshals Service is a challenge, given the web of competing bureaucracies and the unusual nature of the Trump administration’s separation policy.
“Those systems are not linked,” said Megan McKenna, spokeswoman for Kids in Need of Defense, a legal aid group that assists immigrant children. “So it’s kind of an ad hoc process.”
Each family member apprehended at the border is given a number by the Department of Homeland Security when they are taken into custody, but individuals’ numbers are not linked to other members of their family, said Jennifer Podkul, the group’s policy director.
Members of Congress have expressed frustration over their inability to get information about that process.
“We have no idea what they’re doing,” said Sen. Patty Murray, D-Wash., who is her party’s senior member on the committee that oversees HHS. “It is just beyond reprehensible that the administration is not answering these questions.”