A Honduran girl cries as her mother is searched by border patrol in McAllen, Texas, in 2018.John Moore / Getty Images
At least 545 immigrant children in the United States, who were separated from their families in 2018, are still looking for their parents to be reunited.
Lawyers for the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) have denounced in a court in California that the immigration policy "zero tolerance", implemented by the Government of Donald Trump, has pending the meeting of hundreds of minors with their parents when a good part of the adults have already been deported, mainly to Central American countries.
Between 2017 and 2018, the Trump Administration tightened measures to stop irregular immigration to the United States.
The “zero tolerance” program allowed the detention of immigrants to be processed in the justice system as criminals.
Some of them had been part of the migrant caravans that left Central America and crossed Mexico to reach the border with the United States.
When detained by the border patrol or immigration agents, they were sent to prison facilities, while the minors who accompanied them were taken to detention centers or were relocated with foster families in the United States.
In 2018, after knowing the conditions in which these minors were staying in immigration stations, Trump signed an executive order to stop the separation of families.
However, the process of reuniting the children with their parents has been complicated since then, as immigration agents did not gather enough information to locate the children's parents.
Several non-governmental organizations began the task and have managed to reunite 485 families with their children in the last two years.
“People ask when we will find all these families and sadly, I cannot give an answer.
I just do not know.
But we won't stop looking until we find each of the families, no matter how long it takes us.
The tragic reality is that hundreds of parents were deported to Central America without their children, who remain here with foster families or distant relatives, "Lee Gelernt, deputy director of the ACLU Immigrant Rights Project, told NBC.
The organization estimates that two-thirds of the parents have already been deported to countries such as Honduras, El Salvador, Guatemala and Mexico.
Of the total of minors who have not yet been reunited with their families, 283 do not have any information that could help lawyers find their relatives, considering that at least 60 of them were separated when they were less than five years old and they remember few details about their places of origin and their parents.
The Trump Administration's anti-immigrant program began in June 2017 with a pilot program in El Paso (Texas), from that date to June 2018, at least 2,800 children were separated from their families.
The issue has entered the electoral campaign and the Democratic candidate, Joe Biden, expressed his indignation on Wednesday after knowing the details about the fate of minors under the Trump administration.
“This Administration ripped the babies from their mothers' arms, and then it seems that those fathers in many cases were deported without their children and have not been found.
It is an outrage, a moral flaw and a stain on the character of our country, ”Biden said in a statement.
