7-day stay sought for reunited families
ACLU: Migrants facing complex legal hurdles
More than 1,600 children separated from their parents at the border by the Trump administration are expected to be reunited by today’s court-ordered deadline, but now a battle is brewing over what should happen to them next.
The ACLU says that the government is preparing to quickly deport hundreds of families immediately after their reunification.
In court briefs filed Wednesday, ACLU lawyers renewed arguments asking a federal judge to issue a stay blocking the government from deporting families for at least seven days.
The ACLU argues that parents who haven’t seen their children in months need time to consult with lawyers to figure out their legal options, including whether they should fight their deportation, be deported together or accept deportation but leave their child behind with relatives in the U.S. to pursue asylum on their own.
“The government took children, including babies, from their parents and did not return them for weeks and often months,” the ACLU court filing
said. “The government should not now be able to argue that it cannot wait a mere seven days to remove these families, so that they can be advised on their life-altering decisions.”
Government lawyers, however, are fighting the move, arguing that a stay on deporting reunited families would interfere with the government’s authority to enforce immigration laws.
In court filings arguing against the stay, government lawyers say that reunited parents have already had “adequate time to make a sound choice” regarding whether to reunify with their separated children.
Government lawyers also argue that parents who have chosen to reunify and then elect to leave the U.S. without their children are at odds with the court’s order to bring separated families back together.
“Once the parent is identified, and has chosen using the Court-approved form to reunify with their child, requiring a parent to again choose whether to leave their child in the United States is inconsistent with this court’s effort to return to the status quo and bring families back together,” government lawyers wrote in a court filing.
A total of 900 parents out of 1,673 deemed eligible for reunification with separated children have final orders of removal, meaning the government could take action to quickly deport them, according to court filings and statements made by government lawyers during a status conference on Tuesday in front of U.S. District Court Judge Dana Sabraw in San Diego.
During a status conference on Tuesday, Sabraw praised the government for being on track to meet his order and reunite 1,637 children approved by the government for reunification with their parents by today’s deadline.
But he expressed concern about the 914 parents the government has deemed ineligible for reunification, including 127 who signed documents waiving their rights to reunification and 463 who may already have been deported without their children.
In court filings submitted Tuesday, ACLU lawyers attached documents from lawyers who have interviewed dozens of parents who said they were pressured by the government while in detention to sign papers waiving reunification without understanding what they were signing.
Sabraw gave government lawyers until noon Wednesday to provide more information about the 463 parents the government has concluded are no longer in the U.S. and may have been deported without their children.
Sabraw expressed concern they fell through the cracks.
“This could be, to be clear, the category where parents and children were separated either before or during the zero-tolerance policy and there wasn’t infrastructure in place to determine at separate times where the parent was versus the child, which then resulted in a number of parents being removed without the child. Am I correct?” Sabraw asked during Tuesday’s status conference.
“It could be your honor,” responded Sarah Fabian, a lawyer for the government.
After Tuesday’s status conference, ACLU lawyers accused the government of intentionally withholding information about the 914 families deemed ineligible for reunification.
“The Trump administration’s lack of transparency is now bordering on stonewalling,” Lee Gelernt, deputy director of the ACLU’s Immigrants’ Rights Project, said in a statement. “And no one should forget that the government’s claim that it will meet the reunification deadline is based on its exclusion of parents it has deported or can’t locate, as well as on its unilateral, unchecked decision of who is eligible to be reunited or not.”
Sabraw scheduled the next status conference with lawyers from the ACLU and the government for Friday.