Last month, the Biden administration announced a reunification task force to find and reunite the parents separated from their migrant children under the Trump administration’s 2018 zero-tolerance family separation policy. As of January 14, the whereabouts of 611 parents of migrant children were unknown, many of whom have been separated from their children for over two years and are presumed to have been deported back to their home countries. Last week, lawyers announced that they had found the parents of 112 children.
Pro bono lawyers and advocates representing the separated families have begun working with the federal task force to find and reunite the families. Last Wednesday, lawyers announced they had found the parents of 105 children. Seven more have been found since, totaling 112 parents and bringing the number of parents yet to be found to 499. Of these, lawyers estimate that about 322 have been deported, which makes locating them more difficult. The lawyers explained that many parents agreed to be deported back to their home countries without the children to allow the children to remain in the United States.
The number of parents found, however, is not the same as the number that have been reunited with their children, Lee Gelernt, American Civil Liberties Union lawyer, explained. Lawyers working on reunification hope to be able to provide the task force with a number of how many families have been reunited soon. An obstacle for reunification has been that parents do not want to have their children brought from the United States back to the dangerous countries where the parents reside. “These separated families suffered unfathomably because of what our government did, and we owe them restitution. This includes a permanent pathway to citizenship, care and resources to help them,” Anthony Romero, executive director of the ACLU, said. Lawyers representing the families had asked the Biden administration to let the parents come back into the United States to be reunited with their children, a proposition the administration agreed to this week.
During a White House briefing on Monday, Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas announced that the task force will give separated families the option of being reunited in their home countries or in the United States. “We are hoping to reunite the families either here or in their country of origin. We hope to be in a position to give them the election, and if, in fact, they seek to reunite here in the United States, we will explore lawful pathways for them to remain in the United States and to address the family needs,” he said. He also announced the appointment of Michelle Brané as executive director of the task force. Additional benefits and protections will be afforded to the families, like transportation, health care, mental health services, and legal, career, and education services.
Photo: ACLU