SEPARATE secretary. The email notes

children who were separated as early as July 2017.

Democrats on the House Judiciary Committee released the report Thursday with emails obtained from government agencies. It comes shortly before Election Day as Democrats campaign against the Trump administration’s family separations, which stirred widespread outcry as part of its “zero tolerance” crackdown on illegal border crossings.

Democrat Joe Biden an

nounced Thursday that he

would form a task force if elected to reunite still-separated families.

The report outlines discussions since the start of the Trump administration of family separation as a law enforcement tactic. In March 2017, then-Homeland Security Secretary John Kelly told CNN that the government was considering taking children from their families and placing them in government-licensed shelters while the parents were prosecuted.

That July, Customs and Border Protection agents began separating families

in what was later called a

pilot program, according to a review by the Health and Human Services inspector general.

The pilot ran through November 2017. According to the inspector general, at least 118 children were taken from their parents. Documents in the new report suggest CBP did not communicate with HHS about why shelters were receiving more separated children.

White, the HHS official, wrote a Nov. 17, 2017, email to Kevin McAleenan, who was then commissioner of CBP and later became acting Homeland Security

“the increase in referrals” of children unaccompanied by a parent “resulting from separation of children from parents.” White sent McAleenan a chart of all the children HHS had received.

In a Dec. 3, 2017, response, McAleenan wrote in part: “You should have seen a change the past 10 days or so. We will be coordinating in advance on any future plans.”

Another HHS official, Tricia Swartz, had written to White on Sept. 28, 2017, warning that “these types of cases often end up with parent repatriated and

kid in our care for months

pending home studies, international legal issues, etc.”

The pilot program is believed to have been limited to the region around El Paso, Texas, including parts of New Mexico. Months later, the Trump administration began separating families border-wide. The report documents how different Border Patrol sectors had their own policies for which families to separate: the Big Bend sector in rural Texas initially exempted children 5 and younger, while the El Centro sector in California did not.

In June 2018, U.S. District Judge Dana Sabraw ordered the government to reunite all migrant families. More than two years later, the process is still underway, with lawyers and nonprofits trying to find parents in Central America and elsewhere after their children were placed with sponsors in the U.S., usually relatives.

McAleenan did not respond to a request for comment. The Homeland Security and Health and Human Services departments did not respond to requests for comment.