{"id":607083,"date":"2018-07-25T09:22:23","date_gmt":"2018-07-25T15:22:23","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/?p=607083"},"modified":"2018-07-26T06:51:09","modified_gmt":"2018-07-26T12:51:09","slug":"the-government-has-lost-track-of-hundreds-of-migrant-parents-likely-delaying-reunifications","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/2018\/07\/the-government-has-lost-track-of-hundreds-of-migrant-parents-likely-delaying-reunifications\/","title":{"rendered":"The government has lost track of hundreds of migrant parents, likely delaying reunifications"},"content":{"rendered":"<div id=\"attachment_607090\"  class=\"wp-caption module image alignnone\" style=\"max-width: 771px;\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-large wp-image-607090\" src=\"http:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/07\/MIGRANTS_bus_station_3_RL_TT-771x517.jpg\" alt=\"Immigrants\" width=\"771\" height=\"517\" srcset=\"https:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/07\/MIGRANTS_bus_station_3_RL_TT-771x517.jpg 771w, https:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/07\/MIGRANTS_bus_station_3_RL_TT-336x225.jpg 336w, https:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/07\/MIGRANTS_bus_station_3_RL_TT-768x515.jpg 768w, https:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/07\/MIGRANTS_bus_station_3_RL_TT-1170x784.jpg 1170w, https:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/07\/MIGRANTS_bus_station_3_RL_TT.jpg 1250w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 771px) 100vw, 771px\" \/><p class=\"wp-media-credit\">Reynaldo Leal \/ for The Texas Tribune<\/p><p class=\"wp-caption-text\">Immigrants, many wearing ankle monitors, are dropped off at the McAllen Central Station in Texas, where they are they are given bus tickets to other parts of the country, on June 23.<\/p><\/div>\n<p dir=\"ltr\">More than 450 migrant parents who were separated from their children at the border are no longer in the United States \u2014 but the government can\u2019t be sure how many of them were deported and how many may have \u201cvoluntarily\u201d left because of confusion over how those individuals were \u201ccoded,\u201d Sarah Fabian, a lawyer for the U.S. Department of Justice, said Tuesday at a court conference in San Diego.<\/p>\n<p dir=\"ltr\">Those 463 migrants are among about 1,000 who are highly unlikely to be reunited with their 5- to 17-year-old children by Thursday, despite a court-ordered deadline handed down a month ago. Those parents have joined a growing group of migrants: parents who were once held in U.S. immigration custody whose whereabouts the government has now lost track of.<\/p>\n<aside class=\"module align-left half type-aside\">\n<h3>About this article<\/h3>\n<p>This article originally appeared in\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/www.texastribune.org\/2018\/07\/24\/450-migrant-separated-families-deported-reunification-deadline\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">The Texas Tribune<\/a>,\u00a0a nonpartisan, nonprofit media organization that informs Texans and engages with them about public policy, politics, government and statewide issues.<\/p>\n<\/aside>\n<p dir=\"ltr\">Also in that purgatorial group are some 200 migrants who were released from immigration detention into the United States. Those individuals may not be reunited with their children this week as they may be difficult for the government to locate.<\/p>\n<p dir=\"ltr\">At a status conference Tuesday before U.S. District Judge Dana Sabraw, the federal judge who ordered those reunifications on June 26, the government defended its progress on family reunifications \u2014 Scott Stewart, a lawyer for the DOJ, said he was \u201cproud\u201d of government efforts and denied widespread reports of chaos on the ground \u2014 even as they conceded that their work has been stymied by bureaucratic confusions.<\/p>\n<p dir=\"ltr\">\u201cIt may be a removal, or it may be a voluntary departure that\u2019s unrelated, or it may be a prior code,\u201d Fabian said, referring to the system used to identify migrants outside the U.S. who have yet to be located. \u201cWe\u2019re going through those to determine exactly what those codes mean in each of those cases.\u201d<\/p>\n<p dir=\"ltr\">The \u201clarge number of parents who are unaccounted for, or who may have been removed without their child,\u201d is \u201ca deeply troubling reality of the case,\u201d the judge said.<\/p>\n<p dir=\"ltr\">In response to questions from the judge, the government also said it was unable to specify how many reunited migrant families have been released and how many are being held in immigration detention centers. At a press conference in Austin earlier Tuesday, Manoj Govindaiah of RAICES, an advocacy group working with migrant families, said there is \u201cno rhyme or reason\u201d to which families are detained.<\/p>\n<p dir=\"ltr\">And Fabian, speaking for the DOJ, said she could not say whether the approximately 20 migrant parents who have been recently deported were with their children when that removal took place. Due to a temporary court order, the government may not deport families immediately after they are reunited. But lawyers for the DOJ have asked Sabraw to reconsider.<!--more--><\/p>\n<p dir=\"ltr\">Lee Gelernt, lawyer for the American Civil Liberties Union, which successfully took the government to court this year to order the reunifications, said reunifications have been \u201ca mess on the ground\u201d \u2014 a characterization the government disputed.<\/p>\n<p dir=\"ltr\">This week\u2019s reunification deadline is the second the government has faced \u2014 migrant children under 5 were to be reunited by July 10 \u2014 and the second time confusion over parents\u2019 location has at least delayed, if not prevented, reunifications from taking place. Earlier this month, just over half of the toddlers, 57 of 103, <a href=\"https:\/\/www.texastribune.org\/2018\/07\/12\/trump-administration-reunites-57-immigrant-children-under-5-declares-t\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">were reunited<\/a> with their parents, and the rest declared \u201cineligible\u201d \u2014 many because the government had released or deported their parents and did not know where the adults were.<\/p>\n<p dir=\"ltr\">Despite that confusion, the government has made significant progress on reunifications: As of Tuesday evening, 1,012 had taken place, up from 879 Monday. Hundreds more reunifications have been cleared to go forth and are set to move forward, pending transportation of migrant parents and children and, Fabian warned, \u201cpotential weather-related travel issues.\u201d<\/p>\n<p dir=\"ltr\">The judge praised the government for its reunification efforts, calling it a \u201cremarkable achievement,\u201d but acknowledged that the ACLU is due more information about where migrant parents are and how their cases are progressing.<\/p>\n<p dir=\"ltr\">\u201cThis should really be a transparent process,\u201d he said. \u201cSome of this information is unpleasant. But it\u2019s the reality of the case. It\u2019s the reality of a policy that was in place that resulted in large numbers of families being separated without forethought.\u201d<script src=\"https:\/\/cdn.texastribune.org\/pixel\/dot.min.29c708b3d0da5d17a725.js\" integrity=\"sha384-8Xwf\/TlQnmHiajg1t3dn8w4qlF1rmV33o5NAQVXYu0T2q3rHV5579zrSmRjh+XnM\" crossorigin=\"anonymous\" data-tt-canonical=\"https:\/\/www.texastribune.org\/2018\/07\/24\/450-migrant-separated-families-deported-reunification-deadline\/\"><\/script><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>For the second time, it looks like the government&#8217;s efforts to reunify separated migrant families will be stymied by its own bureaucratic failings.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":607090,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[11],"tags":[140,234],"class_list":["post-607083","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-news-and-analysis","tag-border-and-immigration","tag-children"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/607083","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=607083"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/607083\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/607090"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=607083"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=607083"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=607083"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}