A federal judge on Tuesday ordered the Trump administration to stop separating migrant separate parents and children caught crossing the border from Mexico illegally and must work to reunite all children with their parents within 30 days and those younger than 5 within two weeks.
Officials with the Health and Human Services Department said 2,047 children who had been separated from their families were in the agency’s care and that efforts were continuing to get them back with their families.
United States District Court Judge Dana Sabraw said that for now, parents can no longer be detained or deported without their children unless the minors are found to be in danger or the parents have consented.
“There is no genuine dispute that the government was not prepared to accommodate the mass influx of separated children,” the judge wrote.
President Donald Trump on June 20 issued an executive order committed to stopping the separation of migrant families after they are detained, but confusion at the border has continued.
The Department of Health and Human Services and Department of Homeland Security didn’t immediately respond to requests for comment Tuesday.
More than 2,300 migrant children were separated from their parents after the Trump administration began a “zero tolerance” policy in early May, seeking to prosecute all adults who crossed the border illegally, including those traveling with children.
Lee Gelernt, an attorney with the ACLU, said Tuesday night that the “ruling is an enormous victory for parents and children who thought they may never see each other again.”
At a telephonic hearing Friday before Judge Sabraw, Mr. Gelernt urged the judge to act swiftly, calling the separated families “a humanitarian crisis of the utmost proportions.”
Justice Department spokesman Devin O’Malley said: “Last night’s court decision makes it even more imperative that Congress finally act to give federal law enforcement the ability to simultaneously enforce the law and keep families together.”
>Juthy Saha
