BFF-04 700 separated children still in US custody after deadline

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US-POLITICS-IMMIGRATION-CHILDREN

700 separated children still in US custody after deadline

LOS ANGELES, July 27, 2018 (BSS/AFP) – The US government said Thursday
that hundreds of families it broke up at the border with Mexico have not been
reunited as a court-ordered deadline to return all children to their parents
elapsed.

A federal judge in California had ordered that all eligible migrant
families be brought back together by 6:00 pm (2200 GMT) and officials said in
a court filing that 1,442 children aged five and older had been reunited with
their parents.

“The reunification plan outlined to the court… is proceeding, and is
expected to result in the reunification of all class members found eligible
for reunification at this time by the court’s July 26, 2018 deadline,” the
government said.

A further 378 children had already been released under other “appropriate
circumstances,” the filing added, but more than 700 children remain in
custody.

The government said the deadline had been met however, because those
families were ineligible, either because family ties have not been confirmed,
or the parent has a criminal record, a communicable disease or cannot be
found.

The controversial separations began in May, when migrants entering
illegally were detained en masse, and their children taken to detention
centers and shelters.

The American Civil Liberties Union, which brought the lawsuit to reunite
the families, said earlier Thursday that the government was manipulating the
figures to give a false impression of success.

“These parents and children have lost valuable time together that can never
be replaced. We’re thrilled for the families who are finally reunited, but
many more remain separated,” Lee Gelernt, deputy director of the ACLU’s
Immigrants’ Rights Project, said in a statement.

“The Trump administration is trying to sweep them under the rug by
unilaterally picking and choosing who is eligible for reunification. We will
continue to hold the government accountable and get these families back
together.”

– Slow pace –

The deadline is seen as turning a page on the scandal, but the turmoil is
barely beginning for many families that now face life-altering decisions,
including whether or not to agree to long-term separations, rights advocates
and lawmakers say.

Lawyer Efren Olivares of the Texas Civil Rights Project, which represents
some parents, said the US treatment of migrant families had been marked by
“chaos and cruelty,” and that officials’ rush to reunite parents and children
lacked organization.

“In South Texas, we’ve witnessed haphazard reunifications in detention
center parking lots at all hours of the day and night,” he said.

As the deadline neared, dozens of families with children gathered for a
sit-in on Capitol Hill, while Democratic lawmakers blasted President Donald
Trump’s “zero tolerance” border policy as un-American.

The separations policy triggered outrage in the United States and abroad,
especially after the release of audio of small children in shelters crying
for their parents, many of whom fled turmoil and gang violence in Central
America.

The pressure led to the Republican president demanding an end to the
separations six weeks later. Judge Dana Sabraw in San Diego then ordered the
reunifications, hundreds of which have already occurred, and she set Thursday
as the deadline.

Homeland Security Secretary Kirstjen Nielsen said Tuesday the government
intended to “reunify all families that are suitable.”

But the pace has been slow; children and parents are being housed in
different parts of the country, and many adults have been deported.

– ‘Nobody chooses to be separated’ –

Government data indicates that the parent or parents of more than 430
children may already have been deported, some of them voluntarily —
enormously complicating any possible reunion.

Finding parents in Mexico or Central America will be a long, painstaking
task, said ACLU attorney Stephen Kang.

Democratic lawmakers who recently visited detention facilities near the
border accuse the administration of continuing to separate families, and they
dispute the government’s characterization that parents were voluntarily
leaving their children.

“Nobody chooses to be separated, unlike what this administration is
saying,” Senator Catherine Cortez Masto said.

Last month Judge Sabraw ordered the government to return children under the
age of five to their parents by July 10 and those between five and 17 by July
26.

The government missed the first deadline. It deemed 45 children ineligible
for return because their parents were not fit or able to take them.

As of Tuesday — before the latest figures were announced — HHS had in its
custody 11,500 children classified as unaccompanied alien children, mainly
minors who entered without an adult.

But the number also includes children who crossed over with parents, were
separated from them and then reclassified as unaccompanied alien children
when they were sent to shelters.

BSS/AFP/MRI/0831 hrs