{"id":607722,"date":"2018-07-27T08:33:34","date_gmt":"2018-07-27T14:33:34","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/?p=607722"},"modified":"2018-07-27T08:33:34","modified_gmt":"2018-07-27T14:33:34","slug":"as-reunification-deadline-lands-hundreds-of-migrant-families-remain-divided","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/2018\/07\/as-reunification-deadline-lands-hundreds-of-migrant-families-remain-divided\/","title":{"rendered":"As reunification deadline lands, hundreds of migrant families remain divided"},"content":{"rendered":"<div id=\"attachment_594206\"  class=\"wp-caption module image alignnone\" style=\"max-width: 771px;\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-large wp-image-594206\" src=\"http:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/06\/CBP_McAllen_4-771x517.jpg\" alt=\"Children\" width=\"771\" height=\"517\" srcset=\"https:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/06\/CBP_McAllen_4-771x517.jpg 771w, https:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/06\/CBP_McAllen_4-336x225.jpg 336w, https:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/06\/CBP_McAllen_4-768x515.jpg 768w, https:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/06\/CBP_McAllen_4-1170x784.jpg 1170w, https:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/06\/CBP_McAllen_4.jpg 1250w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 771px) 100vw, 771px\" \/><p class=\"wp-media-credit\">U.S. Customs and Border Protection<\/p><p class=\"wp-caption-text\">Undocumented immigrant children at a U.S. Border Patrol processing center in McAllen, Texas.<\/p><\/div>\n<p dir=\"ltr\">On June 26, a federal judge gave the Trump administration a month to reunite the more than 2,500 children separated from their parents at the border. On Thursday, when that deadline hit, it had brought back together just about two-thirds of those families.<\/p>\n<p dir=\"ltr\">The other 700-plus of them, some with toddlers and some with teenagers, remain apart, with children scattered across the United States in government care and parents spread across the world. In some cases, parents were \u201cineligible\u201d for reunification this week because of a prohibitive criminal background.<\/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\/26\/migrant-families-separated-court-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\">In more cases, though, the continued separation is of the government\u2019s own making: More than 400 parents were <a href=\"https:\/\/www.texastribune.org\/2018\/07\/24\/450-migrant-separated-families-deported-reunification-deadline\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">deported<\/a> without their children, and nearly 100 more were released into the United States, their whereabouts now unknown. The location of about 100 children&#8217;s parents remains \u201cunder review.\u201d Parents to 120 children, the government says, <a href=\"https:\/\/www.texastribune.org\/2018\/07\/26\/some-separated-migrant-parents-say-they-were-coerced-giving-their-kids\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">waived reunification<\/a> with their children; but lawyers for those families say many were confused or coerced.<\/p>\n<p dir=\"ltr\">Federal government officials announced Thursday evening that 1,442 reunifications have taken place in ICE custody among about 2,500 migrant children ages 5 to 17. Officials also said that 378 more children have been discharged \u201cin other appropriate circumstances\u201d \u2014 including reuniting with parents outside ICE custody, being released to other relatives, or turning 18.<\/p>\n<p dir=\"ltr\">That news about reunifications for older children comes <a href=\"https:\/\/www.texastribune.org\/2018\/07\/12\/trump-administration-reunites-57-immigrant-children-under-5-declares-t\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">two weeks after<\/a> the government reunited just 57 of 103 \u201ctender age\u201d children at its first court-ordered deadline, declaring the rest \u201cineligible.\u201d<\/p>\n<p dir=\"ltr\">Some reunited families have been released together into the country; more than 200 families remain locked up together at two immigration detention centers in Texas. Many of them will likely be deported together over the coming weeks.<\/p>\n<p dir=\"ltr\">Pressed on how the government would reunify the remaining hundreds of families \u2014 the bulk of which are now been separated by the country\u2019s border \u2014 federal officials demurred, repeating several times that they \u201cdon\u2019t want to get ahead\u201d of the federal court case that ordered the reunifications in the first place. A conference in that case is set for Friday afternoon, and road ahead will be laid out by a federal judge.<!--more--><\/p>\n<p dir=\"ltr\">The American Civil Liberties Union, which successfully took the government to court to order the reunifications, has demanded more information on the reunions that have already taken place and further assurances about the fate of families that remain apart.<\/p>\n<p dir=\"ltr\">The biggest uncertainty rests with the 431 children whose parents have been deported.<\/p>\n<p dir=\"ltr\">\u201cWe don\u2019t keep track of individuals once they\u2019ve been deported to foreign countries,\u201d said Matthew Albence, an executive associate director at ICE, on a call with reporters Thursday evening. \u201cWe\u2019ll work with the court on how we can potentially facilitate reunifications with those individuals.\u201d<\/p>\n<p dir=\"ltr\">Albence added that all parents who were deported were asked whether they wanted to be reunified with their children and declined. Advocates have cast doubt on that claim, saying many parents <a href=\"https:\/\/www.texastribune.org\/2018\/06\/24\/kids-exchange-deportation-migrants-claim-they-were-promised-they-could\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">were manipulated or even misled<\/a> into making that decision.<\/p>\n<p dir=\"ltr\">Even as the government emphasized that it had reunited all eligible parents by the court\u2019s deadline, advocates criticized federal officials for leaving hundreds of other families divided.<\/p>\n<p dir=\"ltr\">Efr\u00e9n Olivares, an official with the Texas Civil Rights Project, said the continued family separations \u201cgo against our values as a nation.\u201d And Vanita Gupta, president and CEO of the Leadership Conference on Civil and Human Rights, said the federal government \u201ccan\u2019t seem to fix its self-created catastrophe.\u201d<\/p>\n<p dir=\"ltr\">\u201cIn one fell swoop, the Trump administration ripped away thousands of children from their parents, then deported hundreds of parents without their children,\u201d Gupta said in a statement. \u201cThese actions are despicable and morally bankrupt. \u2026 Given this administration\u2019s lack of urgency to reunite all families by today\u2019s court-ordered deadline, Congress needs to ensure all families are reunited immediately.\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\/26\/migrant-families-separated-court-deadline\/\"><\/script><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Some parents have been declared ineligible because of &#8220;red flags&#8221; in their records. But many haven&#8217;t been reunified because immigration officials already deported them.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":594206,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[11],"tags":[140,234],"class_list":["post-607722","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\/607722","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=607722"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/607722\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/594206"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=607722"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=607722"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=607722"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}