6 children in 6 days, thousands left: Inside the family reunifications
By: Tal Kopan, CNN
The Trump administration has more than 2,000 children it separated from their parents in its custody. In a six-day span, that number only went down by six children.
It’s still unknown, though, whether those children were reunited with parents, other family or otherwise transferred out of Health and Human Services custody, and the government has not answered questions about the circumstances of their release.
The stories are heart wrenching.
A Guatemalan woman sued the government after her 7-year-old son was separated from her, and in the middle of those proceedings was able to reunite with her son.
As Beata Mariana de Jesus Mejia-Mejia embraced her son, Darwin, at the Baltimore Washington International Airport for the first time in more than a month, she cried.
“I love you,” she said in Spanish, between sobs.
But thousands more parents remain in limbo.
The Annunciation House, which hosts undocumented immigrants in El Paso, Texas, received 32 separated parents on Sunday upon their release from detention. According to the parents, the average child’s age is 10, and just three of the parents had spoken with their child personally since they were separated.
In an emotional news conference, some of the parents told their stories of trying to find their children in government custody.
One woman, Miriam, from Guatemala, said she didn’t have a chance to say a word to her 4-year-old son before he was taken from her at dawn while he was fast asleep — he was still asleep when they put him on a truck and drove away, she said.
When she was finally able to reach him Monday by phone in New York, she said he refused to speak to her. CNN was unable to confirm how much time had passed since their separation. But as Miriam tells it, it was long enough to make an impression on him.
“He’s mad at me,” she said, tears in her eyes. “He thinks that I abandoned him.”
Data hard to come by
The administration has been reticent to release much data about the results of its prosecution policy that ended up separating more than 2,000 families at the border in about six weeks. But the new figures show how slow the pace has been to put those families back together — even as a federal judge has now ordered the government to do so in 30 days.
On Tuesday, the secretary of Health and Human Services said there were 2,047 migrant children in its care as a result of being separated from their parents at the border so the parents could be prosecuted on criminal charges. Six days prior, the government had said there were 2,053 such children.
That day, June 20, was when President Donald Trump signed an executive order reversing course on his administration’s decision to separate families — ordering they be held together even during prosecution. In implementing the order, Border Patrol within hours stopped referring parents for criminal charges, thus effectively ending the “zero-tolerance” policy for the time being.
Late Tuesday night, a federal judge in California issued a nationwide order that required the administration to stop detaining immigrant families separately, aside from special circumstances; to reunify parents with children under the age of 5 within two weeks; and to reunite parents with any children aged 5 and over within 30 days.
More: http://www.cnn.com/2018/06/27/politics/six-children-families-separated-reunifications/index.html
*************************************
Sounds like “business as usual” at DHS in the Age of Trump & Sessions. Sometimes, their incompetence at governing tempers their cruelty and inhumanity.
But, in this case, it actually multiplies the damage.
How long until some Federal Judge holds Sessions & Nielsen in contempt? Sanctions DOJ lawyers for misrepresentations in court? What about Bivens damage suits against Sessions, Nielsen & company since they are violating well-established Constitutional rights to Due Process?
PWS
06-27-18