Some kids ineligible to rejoin families

WASHINGTON — The Trump administration said Thursday all eligible small children separated from their families as a result of its zero-tolerance immigration policy have been reunited with their parents.

But nearly half of the children under 5 remain separated from their families because of safety concerns, the deportation of their parents and other issues, the administration said.

The administration was under a court mandate to reunify families separated between early May and June 20, when President Donald Trump signed an executive order that stopped separations. The American Civil Liberties Union filed a lawsuit on behalf of a woman who had been separated from her child, and U.S. District Court Judge Dana Sabraw ordered all children reunited with their parents.

Fifty-seven children were reunified with their parents as of Thursday morning, administration officials said.

“Throughout the reunification process, our goal has been the well-being of the children and returning them to a safe environment,” according to a statement from the heads of the three agencies responsible for the process. “Of course, there remains a tremendous A group of children is taken to the Cayuga Center in New York City recently. The facility is caring for hundreds of migrant children separated from their parents by federal immigration officials. amount of hard work and similar obstacles facing our teams in reuniting the remaining families. The Trump administration does not approach this mission lightly.”

ACLU lawyers said regardless of the reunifications, the government missed the court-ordered deadline and they would be deciding how to address the noncompliance with the court.

Administration officials said 46 of the children were not eligible to be reunited with their parents; a dozen

parents had already been deported and were being contacted by the administration. Nine were in custody of the U.S. Marshals Service for other offenses. One adult’s location was unknown, they said.

Of the deported parents, officials said they had chosen to leave their children behind. One deported father, however, told the Los Angeles Times this week that he didn’t realize what he was doing when he signed the paperwork to leave his child behind.

The 46 children will

remain in the care of Health and Human Services, which will continue to seek to place them with a sponsor, such as other family members or even foster care, as it does for the more than 10,000 other minors who arrived in the U.S. without a relative. Children spend an average of 57 days in shelters before they're placed with a sponsor.

The administration faces a second, bigger deadline — July 26 — to reunite more than 2,000 older children with their families.