Separated migrant families seek $36M
Lawsuit cites trauma of the zero-tolerance policy
The Trump administration was hit with a legal claim on Monday from six migrant families seeking millions of dollars in compensation for the trauma they say they continue to endure after border officers forcibly took away their children and sent them to live in shelters in other states under a zerotolerance policy.
The six families are individually seeking $6 million — $3 million for each mother and $3 million for each child — for a total of $36 million, according to the legal claims filed on their behalf by a group of immigration advocacy organizations and law firms.
“The trauma the children and parents who were torn apart at the border endured will be with them for years and possibly the rest of their lives,” Mark Fleming, associate director of litigation at the National Immigration Justice Center, said during a conference call with reporters.
The center filed the legal claims along with the American Immigration Council and two private law firms, Arnold and Porter in Washington, D.C., and Kairys, Rudovsky, Messing, Feinberg and Lin in Philadelphia.
The money sought for the claims is intended to ensure that mothers and children separated at the border under the zero-tolerance policy are able to access medical and mental health care and other social services, Fleming said.
“The pain and suffering each of these parents and each of these children suffered really cannot be undone. The bell can’t be un-rung here,” Fleming said. “These claims for money damages are intended to provide some modicum of compensation for what to a parent, like myself, would really find unthinkable.”
“The trauma the children and parents who were torn apart at the border endured will be with them for years . ... The pain and suffering each of these parents and each of these children suffered really cannot be undone.” Mark Fleming
Associate director of litigation, National Immigration Justice Center
Six separated families file first claims against Trump administration
These are the first legal claims filed by separated families against the Trump administration seeking monetary damages.
The claims were filed against the Department of Homeland Security, which oversees the two agencies that separated parents from children at the border under zero-tolerance, U.S. Customs and Border Protection and Immigration and Customs Enforcement.
The legal claims also were brought against the Department of Health and Human Services, the agency that took custody of the children after they were taken from their parents.
The claims were filed under the Federal Tort Claims Act, Fleming said.
After six months, the families will be eligible to file lawsuits in federal court seeking monetary damages if the Trump administration has not settled the claims, Fleming said.
More families may file legal claims
It’s possible more separated families may come forward to file legal claims seeking monetary damages.
The Trump administration announced in late April and early May that it had begun taking children away from parents at the border under a zero-tolerance policy that referred for criminal prosecution every person caught entering the U.S. illegally, including parents arriving with children.
The policy was intended to discourage families arriving at the border and asking for asylum.
The Trump administration argued those families were exploiting loopholes in the U.S. immigration system created by court orders requiring the government to release migrant families within 20 days while they pursued their asylum cases in the U.S.
The Trump administration ended the practice last June after accounts of screaming children being ripped from parents arms drew global condemnation.
The government identified nearly 2,700 children who had been separated from their parents under the zero-tolerance policy after a federal judge ordered separated families to be reunited as quickly as possible.
However, an audit by the Office of Inspector General revealed in January that thousands of additional children were separated from their families before the formal start of the Trump administration’s zero-tolerance policy last spring.
Separating families is terrifying and traumatic to children and can cause “toxic stress” that affects developing brains, Minal Giri, chair of the Illinois chapter of the American Academy of Pediatrics’ Refugee Immigrant Child Health Initiative said during the conference call.
“It puts children at risk for developmental delays, regression and emotional problems,” she said. “Long-term research has tied this level of toxic stress to high-blood pressure, heart disease, diabetes and other chronic illnesses in adulthood.”