U.S. likely split up thousands more families than previously disclosed, report says
The Trump administration probably separated thousands more children from their families at the border than the roughly 2,700 the government has previously acknowledged, a federal watchdog said Thursday.
The report by the Department of Health and Human Services’ Office of Inspector General drew the anger of a number of Democrats in Congress, several of whom pledged further investigation into the separations. Sen. Richard J. Durbin of Illinois, the Senate’s second-ranking Democrat, called once again on Homeland Security Secretary Kirstjen Nielsen to resign after the report was released.
“It’s inconceivable that our government chose to secretly separate thousands of children from their parents, was unable or unwilling to reunite these families for months due to incompetent leadership and poor planning, and still doesn’t know how many children were separated,” Durbin said.
Department of Homeland Security officials disputed the inspector general’s estimate.
“We are saying of course separations occurred – but not at the rate of ‘thousands’ they are claiming,” DHS spokeswoman Katie Waldman said in an email.
The administration’s practice of separating children from their families at the border – part of its “zero tolerance” approach to immigration – led to a fierce backlash last year amid reports that children, some younger than 5 years old, were being taken from their parents and placed in government custody.
President Donald Trump eventually signed an executive order ending the separation policy. A San Diego federal court judge also ordered an end to the policy and that families be reunified, a process that proved chaotic as it became clear that officials lacked systems to easily identify and track separated children.
In its efforts to comply with the federal court order, the administration had previously identified 2,737 children separated from their parents.
But Thursday’s report says that number did not include thousands more who may have been separated from their families starting in 2017 and released from government custody prior to the court’s June 2018 order.
The exact number of separated children is still unknown, according to the inspector general’s office.
Homeland Security oversaw the separations while the Department of Health and Human Services was responsible for caring for the children once they were in government custody.
Waldman, the DHS spokeswoman, said children have long been separated from their families in cases in which it is necessary to protect the child.
For “more than a decade it was and continues to be standard for apprehended minors to be separated when the adult is not the parent or legal guardian, the child’s safety is at risk or serious criminal activity by the adult,” she said.