Denied
Judge won’t extend deadline.
A federal judge ordered the Trump administration Tuesday to abide by an order to reunite dozens of children with their parents by the end of the day, turning down a Justice Department request for more time.
U.S. District Judge Dana Sabraw, who ordered the administration to reunite nearly 3,000 children separated by federal immigration agents, asked an attorney for the American Civil Liberties Union to prepare a proposal for possible punishment if the government missed Tuesday’s deadline to reunite the first round of families.
“These are firm deadlines,” Sabraw said. “They’re not aspirational goals.”
Justice Department lawyer Sarah Fabian said DNA tests being conducted on 16 parents and children to confirm they were indeed related could stretch into Wednesday. Sabraw didn’t budge.
“They need to respond,” he said. “They need to be ... aware of the deadlines.”
The government faces two deadlines to reunite families separated by immigration agents, most under the Trump administration’s “zero tolerance” policy.
Sixty-three of a group of 100 children under age 5 were to be reunited by Tuesday. The others had more complicated cases, including parents who might pose a threat to their child, those in state and federal prisons facing non-immigration, criminal charges, and 12 who were removed from the country.
All other minors – almost 3,000 of them – must be reunited by July 26.
Sabraw said he was encouraged to see the work done by various federal agencies involved in detaining and re- uniting parents and children who are spread out around the country.
The only area where Sabraw provided some wiggle room for the administration is in cases where the parent was deported. He said those families must be reunited under his order, but he acknowledged that those reunifications will take time.
He said he would lay out a plan for those reunions in the days to come.
Sabraw allowed the government to use a quicker approach to reuniting families. The Department of Health and Human Services, which is responsible for the care of minors who have been separated from their parents, has been following guidelines established by Congress in 2000 before releasing any child from its custody.
Fabian explained that those requirements slowed the government’s ability to quickly reunite parents with their children. The law – the Victims of Trafficking and Violence Protection Act – requires background checks of sponsors, in-person checks of where the child would live and a full screening of people who live in that home.
Sabraw ruled that the law was designed for unaccompanied minors – children caught crossing the border alone. Although he urged the government to look out for the best interest of each child it releases, he ruled that the government doesn’t have to follow every single step of the process established by the law.
“Everyone is rolling in the same direction here, it’s just a matter of streamlining the process,” he said.
That should come as a relief to the teams of attorneys and volunteers who are assisting parents in a reunification process that got off to a difficult and complicated start.