HUNDREDS OF CHILDREN REMAIN SEPARATED FROM PARENTS BY TRUMP-ERA POLICY
The Department of Homeland Security acknowledges that nearly a thousand migrant children remain separated from their families in the wake of the Trump administration’s zero-tolerance program to slow down illegal immigration, reported the Wall Street Journal.
Even though former Pres. Donald Trump reversed the family-separation policy shortly after its implementation, discrepancies within the policy process permitted parents and children to enter different immigration tracks as if they had no family ties, ignoring past policy of keeping families as a group, said the Journal.
The law allowed for deportation of parents while keeping children in the U.S. in child welfare shelters or with relatives. Such children have remained separated from their relatives since the day they crossed the U.S. border illegally.
“We understand that our critical work is not finished,” Secretary of Homeland Security Alejandro Mayorkas said in a statement.
As of February 2, 2023, the second anniversary of the creation of a Family Reunification Task Force by Pres. Joe Biden, the national program had reunited 600 migrant children with their parents, according to DHS.
Of the remaining 998 children presently separated from their families, only 148 have entered the process of reunification. The Family Reunification Task Force has also worked with nongovernmental organizations to provide information to another 183 families about the chance to reunify.
“Those children who were unjustly separated from their parents, will be traumatized for the rest of their lives and probably will depend on long-term mental health treatment for their rehabilitation,” said San Quentin resident Jelber Rolando Botello Hernandez.
“Hopefully, with the directives implemented by Pres. Joe Biden and the work of the Department of Homeland Security; those youngsters are reunited with their parents and the situation resolved.”
Historically, children received enhanced legal protection under immigration law and mostly stayed in the U.S., either with relatives or in the care of child welfare shelters. Meanwhile authorities could rapidly dismiss adult asylum requests, said the article.
Officials at the Department of Health and Human Services said that due to concerns over a parent’s criminal history, some children continue to remain separated from their parents.
“The Task Force continues to coordinate outreach to families who were separated to ensure they are afforded the opportunity to reunite in the United States and receive critically needed behavioral health services to address the trauma they suffered,” DHS Secretary Mayorkas said.
