Lawyers say they can't find the parents of 545 migrant children separated by Trump administration
Category: News & Politics
Via: jbb • 4 years ago • 17 commentsBy: Julia Ainsley and Jacob Soboroff (NBC News)
S E E D E D C O N T E N T
Oct. 20, 2020, 10:22 PM UTC By Julia Ainsley and Jacob Soboroff
WASHINGTON — Lawyers appointed by a federal judge to identify migrant families who were separated by the Trump administration say they have yet to track down the parents of 545 children, and that approximately two-thirds of those parents were deported to Central America without their children, according to a filing from the ACLU on Tuesday.
The Trump administration instituted a "zero tolerance" policy in 2018 that separated migrant children and parents at the southern U.S. border. The administration later confirmed that it had actually begun separating families in 2017 along some portions of the border under a pilot program. The ACLU and other pro-bono law firms were tasked with finding the members of families separated during that pilot program.
Unlike the 2,800 families separated under zero tolerance in 2018, most of whom remained in custody when zero tolerance was ended by executive order, many of the more than 1,000 parents separated from their children under the pilot program had already been deported before a federal judge in California ordered they be found.
Family separations policy was decided by show of hands vote in the situation room
Oct. 7, 202004:28
"It is critical to find out as much as possible about who was responsible for this horrific practice while not losing sight of the fact that hundreds of families have still not been found and remain separated," said Lee Gelernt, deputy director of the ACLU Immigrants' Rights Project. "There is so much more work to be done to find these families."
"People ask when we will find all of these families and, sadly, I can't give an answer. I just don't know. But we will not stop looking until we have found every one of the families, no matter how long it takes. The tragic reality is that hundreds of parents were deported to Central America without their children, who remain here with foster families or distant relatives."
The ACLU and other organizations that are part of a court-appointed "steering committee" learned that more than 1,000 families were separated in 2017 based on data provided by the Department of Homeland Security. Of those, it has been able to contact the parents of more than 550 children and believes about 25 of them may have a chance of being able to come back to the U.S. for reunification.
Officials in 2017: Migrant children under 12 can't find their parents if separated
Oct. 9, 202004:47
Gelernt said some of the families contacted have elected to keep their children in the U.S. with a family member or sponsor "due to fear of what will happen to their child if they return" to their home countries.
The group Justice in Motion is physically searching for the separated parents in Mexico and Central America. "While we have already located many deported parents, there are hundreds more who we are still trying to reach," said the group in a statement. "It's an arduous and time-consuming process on a good day. During the pandemic, our team of human rights defenders is taking special measures to protect their own security and safety, as well as that of the parents and their communities."
A separate court order directed that the Trump administration reunite families separated under zero tolerance in 2018.
DHS did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
Julia Ainsley
Julia Ainsley is a correspondent covering the Department of Homeland Security and the Department of Justice for the NBC News Investigative Unit.
Jacob Soboroff
Jacob Soboroff is a correspondent for NBC News and MSNBC and author of the New York Times bestseller "Separated: Inside an American Tragedy."
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Well this fiasco really sucks!
Aww. You mean like this baby
Or this baby
Or this baby
I DARE you all Adult Americans and not Americans to watch ALL of these videos.
America did this. American voters did this.
Bloody shame on ALL of us. Imagine YOUR little baby in this baby's place.
I can't - CAN U?
Although I'm only able to read your text, I can imagine what you linked, and agree that those who would re-elect Trump share the shame.
You can always click on my links. Yes, this toddler - BABY - looks like my daughter - and I have pictures to prove it. And I would fucking CHEW those bloody assholes starting with their fat asses if this was my baby crying like that. But then again, I am an AMerican citizen.
Buzz, click on the links. You will see my righteous anger. You MUST see it, please.
You KNOW I'm in China where a lot is censored and blocked.
This is what I get when aI click on both links you posted:
网络连接错误
What a fucked up situation. For Christ's sake they are kids what the fuck is wrong with this administration.
Kudos to ''Justice in Motion''.
The Nazis separated children from their parents as well. Guess the present administration liked that idea.
Now that I think of it, Trump learned a lot from HItler ane his Nazis - like if you tell a lie often enough people will think it's the truth. Does anyone else have more examples?
Just a few:
“ A society becomes totalitarian when its structure becomes flagrantly artificial: that is when its ruling class has lost its function but succeeds in clinging to power by force or fraud .” - George Orwell
" Can It Happen Here? Donald Trump And The Fracturing Of America's Constitutional Order " ( )
" How fascist is Donald Trump? There’s actually a formula for that."
( )
In other words, Yes. If we re-elect him in two weeks, we will have elected Hitler, Mussolini, Evita Peron, Caligula, Nero, Stalin, Chengiz Khan, and Pope Gregory IX (Catholic Inquisition) - IN ONE.
Bill Barr, Steve Bannon, and all the other Catholic Opus Dei creeps plus Orthodox Jews like Javanka will see us to the End of Times.
Amen.
The Albert Shanker article makes the comparison of Trump's methods to Hitler's actually SCARY.
MAGA=fear. This is what it is and for some this is the goal.
Your afraid to Making America Great? Wow. What country you moving to?
WHOOSH!
Point was that fear motivates Trump's voters!
The only people I know that are motivated by fear in this election are liberals.
I will repeat what I have said many times since this whole criminal enterprise came to light. Mass kidnapping and caging of children is a crime against humanity. Trump and anyone in his administration responsible for this atrocity MUST be prosecuted at the International Court of Justice (the World Court). No evasion. No excuses. PROSECUTION.
Who has been kidnapped?
Better hurry and arrest obama before he gets away. The cages and the policy began with him.
This article also goes under the false assumption that the people with those children were actually parents or guardians because in many cases they were not. As I have stated before, I live on the border and have many CBP field agents as neighbors and they have verified this for me.