U.S. says nearly half of youngest children not rejoining families

WASHINGTON — The White House said Thursday all eligible small children separated from their families as a result of its zero-tolerance immigration policy have been reunited with their parents.

But nearly half of the children under 5 remain separated from their families because of safety concerns, the deportation of their parents and other issues, the administration said.

The administration was under a court mandate to reunify families separated between early May and June 20, when President Donald Trump signed an executive order that stopped separations. The American Civil Liberties Union filed a lawsuit on behalf of a woman who had been separated from her child, and U.S. District Court Judge Dana Sabraw ordered all children reunited with their parents.

Fifty-seven children were reunified with their parents as of Thursday morning, administration officials said.

“Throughout the reunification process, our goal has been the well-being of the children and returning them to a safe environment,” according to a statement from the heads of the three agencies responsible for the process. “Of course, there remains a tremendous amount of hard work and similar obstacles facing our teams in reuniting the remaining families. The Trump administration does not approach this mission lightly.”

ACLU lawyers said regardless of the reunifications, the government missed the court-ordered deadline and they would be deciding how to address the noncompli- ance with the court.

“If in fact 57 children have been reunited because of the lawsuit, we could not be more happy for those families. But make no mistake about it: the government missed the deadline even for these 57 children,” attorney Lee said. Gelernt The officials said 46 of the children were not eligible to be reunited with their parents; a dozen parents had already been deported and were being contacted by the administration. Nine were in custody of the U.S. Marshals Service for other offenses. One adult’s location was unknown, they said.

Of the deported parents, officials said they had chosen to leave their children behind. One deported father, however, told the Los Angeles Times earlier this week that he didn’t realize what he was doing when he signed the paperwork to leave his child behind. It wasn’t clear if he was one of the dozen; no names have been made public.

In 22 other cases, adults posed safety concerns, they said. Officials said 11 adults had serious criminal histories including child cruelty, murder or human smuggling. Seven were not determined to be a parent, one had a false birth certificate, one had allegedly abused the child. Another planned to house the child with an adult charged with sexually abusing a child.

ASSOCIATED PRESS Javier Garrido Martinez (left) and Alan Garcia sit with their 4-year-sons at a news conference in New York on Wednesday. The men were reunited with their children after almost two months. Authorities took their boys at the U.S. southern border.