News / Human Rights

US misses deadline to reunite all immigrant children with parents

Friday, 27 July 2018 4:48 AM [ Last Update: Friday, 27 July 2018 5:03 AM ]

Perla Silva holds her daughter Aileen at a news conference held for her parents, Concepcion and Margarito Silva, who were detained by Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) on the Fourth of July while trying to meet their daughter and son-in-law on July 26, 2018 in New York City. (Photo by AFP)

The Trump administration has failed to meet a court-ordered deadline to reunite immigrant children forcibly separated from their families at the US-Mexico border, as about 700 children still remain in detection.

The federal government faced a Thursday deadline to reunify more than 2,500 children separated from their parents under President Donald Trump’s “zero-tolerance” policy on immigration.

Authorities said more than 1,800 children have been reunited with their parents and sponsors, signaling a potentially long wait for distressed families.

A woman, identified only as Heydi and her daughter Mishel, 6, and a man, identified only as Luis, and his daughter, Selena ,6, relax together in an Annunciation House facility after they were reunited with their children on July 26, 2018 in El Paso, Texas. (Photo by AFP)

Trump ended the cruel practice late last month amid global outrage from political and religious leaders and protests across the United States. A federal judge in San Diego set a 14-day deadline to reunite children under 5 with their parents and a 30-day deadline for older children.

As of Thursday morning, the government said it had reunited 1,442 children with their parents in Immigration and Customs Enforcement custody. An additional 378 were reunited in different locations around the US or given to relatives or close family members.

That leaves about 700 who still remain apart from their families, including 431 children whose parents have been deported, officials said. The reunion process is more complicated for those children as authorities should fly then back to Guatemala, El Salvador and Honduras.

For two weeks, children have been arriving steadily at ICE holding facilities in Texas, Arizona and New Mexico to be reunited with parents. Charitable organizations have provided meals, clothing, legal advice, plane and bus tickets to those in detention.

This is what happens when a government believes people are “illegal.”

Kids in cages. pic.twitter.com/OAnvr9cl3P
— Jose Antonio Vargas (@joseiswriting) June 12, 2018

In May, Attorney General Jeff Sessions announced a "zero tolerance" policy towards undocumented migrants and refugees, promising to prosecute those who crossed the southern border illegally. Part of that approach has been separating children from their parents who are detained.

Heartbreaking images and audio of children crying for their loved ones while being held in chain-link fence cages stoked outrage in the US and abroad.

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