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Lawyers still fail to locate the parents of 545 children separated by the Trump Administration

2020-10-21T01:48:51.112Z


"It has been extraordinarily difficult to locate all the separated families, especially during the COVID-19 pandemic, but we will not stop until we have located all of them," said attorney Lee Gelernt, deputy director of the ACLU Immigrant Rights Project.


By Julia Ainsley and Jacob Soboroff for NBC News

WASHINGTON - Attorneys appointed by a federal judge to identify migrant families who were separated by the Trump Administration said they have yet to locate the parents of 545 children and that about

two-thirds of these parents were deported to Central America without their children

, according to documents filed in court by the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU).

The Trump Administration instituted a zero tolerance policy in 2018 that separated migrant children from their parents at the southern border of the United States.

Later, the Administration confirmed that

it had actually started separating families since 2017 under a pilot program

in certain parts of the border.

[Reuniting thousands of migrant families will take up to two years, say government lawyers]

The ACLU and other probono law firms, who work without earning an income, were tasked with finding members of separated families during that pilot program.

Jeff Sessions prompted the separation of children from their parents at the border in 2018, according to an investigation

Oct. 7, 202000: 32

Unlike the

2,800 families separated under the zero tolerance policy in 2018

, most of whom remained in custody when it was terminated 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 them found.

"It is critical to find out as much as possible who was responsible for this horrific practice, without losing sight of the fact that

hundreds of families have yet to be found and remain separated,

" said Lee Gelernt, deputy director of the Children's Rights Project. ACLU immigrants.

"Much work remains to be done to find these families."

[Judge Barrett refuses to condemn the separation of migrant families at the border: "It is an intense political debate"]

"People ask when we will find all these families and sadly, I can't give an answer. I just don't know. But we won't stop looking until we find each one of them, 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 host 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

, according to data provided by the Department of Homeland Security.

Of them, they have been able to contact the parents of more than 550 children and believe that about 25 have the possibility of returning to the United States to be reunited.

The group

Justice in Motion

(Justice Movement

) is seeking to separated parents in Mexico and Central America

.

[Trump Administration calls for more time to reunite separated children and parents at the border]

"While we have already located many deported parents, there are hundreds more we are still trying to locate," the group said in a statement.

“It is an arduous and time-consuming process even when things are going well.

During the pandemic, our team of human rights defenders took special measures for their own safety and protection, as well as that of parents and their communities ”.

A separate 2018 court order

ordered the Trump Administration to reunite separated families

under the zero tolerance policy.

The Department of Homeland Security did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

Note translated for Noticias Telemundo by Luis Antonio Hernández.

Source: telemundo

All news articles on 2020-10-21

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