Family reunifications ordered by U.S. judge
SAN DIEGO» A judge in California has ordered U.S. border authorities to reunite separated families within 30 days.
If the children are younger than 5, they must be reunified within 14 days of the order, issued Tuesday.
U.S. District Judge Dana Sabraw in San Diego issued the order in a lawsuit by the American Civil Liberties Union. The lawsuit involves a 7-year-old girl who was separated from her Congolese mother, and a 14-year-old boy who was separated from his Brazilian mother.
Sabraw also issued a nationwide injunction on future family separations, unless the parent is deemed unfit.
More than 2,000 children have been separated from their parents in recent weeks and placed in government-contracted shelters. President Donald Trump last week issued an executive order to stop the separation of families and said parents and children will instead be detained together.
Earlier Tuesday, 17 states, including New York and California, sued the Trump administration Tuesday to force it to reunite the thousands of immigrant children and parents it separated at the border after they crossed into the U.S. illegally, as the legal and political pressure mounted to reconnect families more quickly.
“The administration’s practice of separating families is cruel, plain and simple,” New Jersey Attorney General Gurbir Grewal said in a statement. “Every day, it seems like the administration is issuing new, contradictory policies and relying on new, contradictory justifications. But we can’t forget: The lives of real people hang in the balance.”
The states, all led by Democratic attorneys general, joined Washington, D.C., in filing the lawsuit in federal court in Seattle, arguing that they are being forced to
shoulder increased child welfare, education and social services costs.
The Justice Department did not immediately respond to a request for a comment on the multistate lawsuit. It had no comment on the Los Angeles filing.
In a speech before the conservative Criminal Justice Legal Foundation in Los Angeles, Attorney General Jeff Sessions defended the administration for taking a hardline stand on illegal immigration and said the voters elected the president to do just that.
“This is the Trump era,” he said. “We are enforcing our laws again. We know whose side we are on — so does this group — and we’re on the side of police, and we’re on the side of the public safety of the American people.”
More than 2,000 children have been separated from their parents in recent weeks and placed in government-contracted shelters — hundreds of miles away, in some cases — under a nowabandoned policy toward families caught illegally entering the U.S.
But since Trump’s executive or- der, few families have been reunited, and the Trump administration has disclosed next to nothing on how the process will be carried out or how long it will take.
Health and Human Services Secretary Alex Azar told Congress on Tuesday that his department still has custody of 2,047 immigrant children separated from their parents at the border. That is only six fewer children than the number in HHS custody as of last Wednesday.
Democratic senators said that wasn’t nearly enough progress.
“HHS, Homeland Security, and the Justice Department seem to be doing a lot more to add to the bedlam and deflect blame than they’re doing to tell parents where their kids are,” Oregon Sen. Ron Wyden said.
Under questioning, Azar refused to be pinned down on how long it will take to reunite families.
He said his department does extensive vetting of parents to make sure they are not traffickers masquerading as parents.
Tens of thousands of Central American migrants traveling with children — as well as children traveling alone — are caught on the Mexican border each year. Many are fleeing gang violence.