Federal Court Criticizes Trump Administration For Lax Family Reunification Effort

SAN DIEGO — A federal judge today called out the Trump administration for losing track of hundreds of parents it deported without their children or can’t locate.

During today’s status conference, U.S. District Judge Dana Sabraw said: “The reality is that for every parent who is not located, there will be a permanently orphaned child” and that is “100 percent the responsibility” of the administration.

The American Civil Liberties Union won a nationwide injunction requiring reunification of children under 5 by July 10 and all children by July 26. The Trump administration failed to reunite hundreds of families by those deadlines.

“The judge is refusing to let the government off the hook for the mess it made,” said Lee Gelernt, deputy director of the ACLU’s Immigrants’ Rights Project.

He added that the Trump administration has been withholding information that could be helpful in locating these parents and reuniting them with their children.

“Every day the government has sat on this information has been another day of suffering for these families,” said Gelernt.

Case details are here: https://www.aclu.org/cases/ms-l-v-ice