REUNION CLASH
AGs’ suit: Force feds to bring families together
ALBANY – On the same day President Trump's travel ban on Muslims was upheld, New York and 16 other states filed a suit to force his administration to reunite thousands of immigrant children and parents separated at the border.
The lawsuit, filed Tuesday by Washington State Attorney General Bob Ferguson in Seattle Federal Court, says the feds are forcing the states to shoulder increased child welfare, education and social services costs. It seeks to permanently end the Trump administration's family separation policy — and prohibit the feds from requiring someone to agree not to petition for asylum as a condition of reunification.
“Keeping children separated from their parents is inhumane, unconscionable and illegal – and we're filing suit to stop it,” New York Attorney General Barbara Underwood said.
Trump signed an executive order last week that he said was ending the separations, but the order “is riddled with so many caveats it is essentially meaningless,” the AG's office said.
The suit alleges the Trump administration's zero tolerance policy is irrationally discriminatory, and in violation of equal protection guarantees because it only affects people crossing the southern border of the U.S.
The suit also claims the policy violates U.S. asylum laws because people have been turned away without allowing them to request asylum.
With hundreds of the children separated from their parents sent to New York, Gov. Cuomo announced last week the state would be suing to stop the practice. In addi- tion to New York and Wash-ington, Massachusetts, New Jersey, Pennsylvania and Virginia were among the states to sign on to the suit, as did Washington, D.C.
The suit says at least 321 children separated from their parents are now being housed in New York, well short of the 700 Cuomo estimated last week. The agencies housing the children are under a federal gag order prohibiting them from providing the information, and so far the feds have refused to cooperate with the state.
The suit, which lists a litany of anti-immigration statements made by Trump and those close to him, says that the policy of separating families was done to deter undocumented immigrants from entering the country and to force Congress into enacting an immigration policy that includes building a wall along the southern border of the U.S.
Representatives from the White House and the Justice Department did not respond for requests for comment.