family separation   -Mobile
FREE NEWS LINKS

photo of U.S. Capitol Building  
      HOME 
  SEARCH   

Updates & changes ongoing ....

---- Although this site is https-secure, we cannot guarantee that it or any provided links are safe; be sure your antivirus and other security systems are up to date.

Also see: Democrats; Family reunification; immigration; Republicans;

Jump to:  2014;   2016;   2017;  

                 2018;   2019;   2020;

Undated:
The Trump administration family separation policy is an aspect of U.S. President Donald Trump's immigration policy. The policy was presented to the public as a "zero tolerance" approach intended to deter illegal immigration and to encourage tougher legislation.[1][2][3][4] It was adopted across the whole U.S.–Mexico border from April 2018 until June 2018,[5][6][7] however later investigations found that the practice of family separations had begun a year previous to the public announcement.[8] Under the policy, federal authorities separated children from parents or guardians with whom they had entered the US.[6][9][10] The adults were prosecuted and held in federal jails, and the children placed under the supervision of the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services.[6]

By early June 2018, it emerged that the policy did not include measures to reunite the families that it had separated.[11][12] Following national and international criticism,[13][14][15][16][17][18] on June 20, 2018, President Trump signed an executive order ending family separations at the border.[7] However in March 2019, a government report showed that since that time 245 children had been removed from their families, in some cases without clear documentation undertaken to track them in order to reunite them with their parents.[19]

Back to top


On July 26, 2018, the Trump administration said that 1,442 children had been reunited with their parents while 711 remained in government shelters.[20] However, in January 2019 the administration acknowledged that thousands of children affected by the policy remained separated from their families, with officials uncertain of the exact number.[21][22]

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Trump_administration_family_separation_policy


Undated:
...  people who cross into the United States through the Arizona desert or the Rio Grande violate federal criminal law because of their failure to go through immigration inspections. However, unless they were previously removed or deported from the United States, they are likely subject only to petty offense charges that carry a maximum potential penalty of six months incarceration—charges which definitely are not felony charges.
https://scholarship.law.upenn.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?referer=http://www.google.com/url?sa=t&rct=j&q=&esrc=s&source=web&cd=1&ved=0ahUKEwj0zv6TyuDbAhWTIDQIHWFfDYsQFggnMAA&url=http%3A%2F%2Fscholarship.law.upenn.edu%2Fcgi%2Fviewcontent.cgi%3Farticle%3D1131%26context%3Dpenn_law_review_online&usg=AOvVaw1Mu-etEhGa2KdGzTNXgWUA&httpsredir=1&article=1131&context=penn_law_review_online

[A parking ticket is a petty offense. We do not take children away from parents for a petty offense.]

-- 2014 --

Back to top


June:
Immigration by children to the United States is nothing new. The Children and Family Justice Center’s immigration practice has been representing children in immigration court proceedings for more than ten years.

So, what’s new about this issue and why was it front and center in the news this summer? Why did President Obama, for example, describe the situation at the border as "an urgent humanitarian crisis?" Why did we see pictures of thousands of children sleeping on the floor at military bases? Where are these children from and why are they coming to the United States? Finally, what has happened to the children and did the President’s recent executive actions grant them relief?
http://www.law.northwestern.edu/legalclinic/cfjc/documents/CFJC%20Newsletter%20Article%20final.pdf

June 23: As children and teens played soccer Monday at Joint Base San Antonio-Lackland, Texas Attorney General Greg Abbott and U.S. Sen. Ted Cruz blasted the Obama administration, saying its lax immigration policy has led to the conditions they saw while touring a holding facility for unaccompanied immigrant minors at the base.

Back to top


The children are being temporarily housed at Lackland and facilities in other states to alleviate crowded conditions at federal holding sites on the border.

Cruz said 145,000 unaccompanied minors, mainly from Central America, are expected in the next year — most of whom say they are coming because they were promised “ permisos” — what Cruz calls amnesty. “That is unacceptable,” he said.

“The United States for decades has had in place standards for asylum and refugee status. There are some of these children who are no doubt fleeing direct threats of violence, who have a good case of persecution. ... But for those who were induced to come here because they simply believed a permiso would be granted, they believed that President Obama's amnesty would extend to them, we should follow our laws and we should work to reunite them with their families back home.”
https://www.mysanantonio.com/news/local/article/Abbott-Cruz-blast-Obama-during-tour-of-Lackland-5572821.php

Back to top


July 9: ‘Flee or die’: violence drives Central America’s child migrants to US border

Obama heads to Texas as the mirage of an open door on the southern border triggers a political storm in Washington

Earlier this week, the White House announced plans to introduce fast track deportations and $116m to pay for the cost of transporting unaccompanied children back home, but activists in Central America say that the political debate in the US is missing the point.

“All the talk is about the children in the US, but they are relatively well off,” said Sister Lidia Mara Silva de Souza, a nun from the Scalabrini order that has worked with deportees from the US for decades. “The ones who are the most vulnerable are the ones who are returned to the situations they are running from.”

The vast majority of the child migrants come from Honduras, El Salvador and Guatemala – all struggling with levels of violence tantamount to an undeclared regional war. Honduras has a murder rate of around 90 per 100,000 inhabitants. The rate in Mexico hovers around 20. In the US it is under five.
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2014/jul/09/central-america-child-migrants-us-border-crisis

Back to top


July 9:
Is Illegal Immigration a Crime? Improper Entry v. Unlawful Presence

Both improper entry and unlawful presence should be avoided by any immigrant to the United States, but an illegal alien cannot be criminally charged or incarcerated simply for being undocumented. To learn more, check out FindLaw's section on Immigration Law.
https://blogs.findlaw.com/blotter/2014/07/is-illegal-immigration-a-crime-improper-entry-v-unlawful-presence.html


November 20:
President Obama Cites Exodus on Immigration Reform: 'We Were Strangers Once Too'

His three-pronged plan:

1. "We’ll build on our progress at the border with additional resources for our law enforcement personnel so that they can stem the flow of illegal crossings, and speed the return of those who do cross over."

2. "I will make it easier and faster for high-skilled immigrants, graduates, and entrepreneurs to stay and contribute to our economy, as so many business leaders have proposed."

3. "We’ll take steps to deal responsibly with the millions of undocumented immigrants who already live in our country."
https://www.christianitytoday.com/news/2014/november/how-1000-protestant-pastors-feel-immigration-reform-lifeway.html

-- 2016 --

Back to top


May: United States Immigration Detention

The United States operates the world’s largest immigration detention system. On any given day, the country has some 30,000 people in administrative immigration detention at an estimated cost of nearly $150 a day. In 2016, the combined budget of enforcement agencies was $19 billion. The country’s sprawling detention estate counts on some 200 facilities, including privately operated detention facilities, local jails, juvenile detention centres, field offices, and euphemistically named “family residential centres.” The country has also supported the detention of migrants and asylum seekers in neighbouring countries.

Quick Facts:
Immigration detainees (2017): 323,591
Detained asylum seekers (2016): 44,270
Immigration detention capacity (2017): 44,000
Persons expelled (2016): 446,223
International migrants (2015): 46,627,100
New asylum applications (2017): 137,697
https://www.globaldetentionproject.org/countries/americas/united-states


Back to top


June 20: U.S. Detention and Removal of Asylum Seekers:

An International Human Rights Law Analysis

In recent years, violence of “epidemic levels” has swept across the Northern Triangle of Central America (Honduras, El Salvador, and Guatemala) and parts of Mexico, driving many people to flee these countries and seek protection in the United States and other countries in the region.1 The number of people apprehended at the southwestern border—largely women and children fleeing for their lives—increased sharply in 2014.2 The U.N. High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR)3 has recognized that these asylum seekers are fleeing some of “the most dangerous places on earth” and “present a clear need for international protection.”4 Even U.S. immigration authorities have concluded that eighty-two percent of the women arriving at the border from Northern Triangle countries and Mexico in fiscal year 2015 had potential claims for protection.5

This paper details the U.S. obligation to treat these and other asylum seekers in ways that comport with international human rights and refugee protection commitments.
https://law.yale.edu/system/files/area/center/schell/human_rights_first_-_immigration_detention_-_final_-_20160620_for_publication.pdf

Back to top


June 23: A short-handed and deeply divided Supreme Court deadlocked Thursday on President Barack Obama’s immigration plan to help millions living in the U.S. illegally, effectively killing the plan for the rest of his presidency and raising the stakes even further for the November elections.

On immigration, the tie is not likely to lead to an increase in deportations since the president retains ample discretion to decide whom to deport. But the ruling stymies his effort to bring people “out from the shadows” by giving them the right to work legally in the U.S.

One of the Obama programs would have protected the parents of children who are in the country legally. The other was an expansion of a program that benefits people who were brought to the U.S. as children. Obama decided to move forward on his own after Republicans won control of the Senate in 2014 and the chances for an immigration overhaul, already remote, were further damaged.

Obama said Thursday’s impasse “takes us further from the country we aspire to be.”

The candidates vying to replace him split as plainly as the justices.
https://apnews.com/22b44f178c984e549aac5dd4b6192fce


-- 2017 --

Back to top


December 5:
The Deported

Immigrants Uprooted from the Country They Call Home

Every day, people who call the United States home—including mothers, fathers, and spouses of US citizens; tax-paying employees; and respected community members—are arrested, locked up, and placed in a deportation system that rarely considers their deep and longstanding ties to the United States before summarily removing them from the country. Under President Donald Trump, border-crossings and thus deportations at the border are down, but immigration arrests and deportations from the interior of the country have skyrocketed—showing the Trump administration’s disregard for the rights of individuals who have built their lives and families here.

https://www.hrw.org/report/2017/12/05/deported/immigrants-uprooted-country-they-call-home

December 21:
Trump Administration Considers Separating Families to Combat Illegal Immigration
https://www.nytimes.com/2017/12/21/us/trump-immigrant-families-separate.html


-- 2018 --


Back to top


February 26: ACLU Challenges Trump Administration Practice of Forcibly Separating Asylum-Seeking Parents and Young Children

The American Civil Liberties Union filed a federal lawsuit today seeking to reunite an asylum-seeking mother and her 7-year-old daughter fleeing violence in the Democratic Republic of Congo, only to be forcibly torn from each other in the U.S. and detained separately 2,000 miles apart.

Reports arose in December that the Trump administration was considering a new plan to separate border-crossing parents from their children as a way to scare others from seeking refuge in the U.S.
https://www.aclu.org/news/aclu-challenges-trump-administration-practice-forcibly-separating-asylum-seeking-parents-and

March 1: The Migrant Workers Convention: A Legal Tool to Safeguard Migrants Against Arbitrary Detention
https://www.globaldetentionproject.org/the-migrant-workers-convention-a-legal-tool-to-safeguard-migrants-against-arbitrary-detention

Back to top


March 9: ACLU files class-action lawsuit on ICE, DHS separating asylum-seeking families
http://thehill.com/regulation/court-battles/377635-aclu-files-class-action-lawsuit-over-trump-admin-separating-asylum

April 7: What Happened When Bush, Obama Sent Troops to Mexico Border

Since he launched his run for president, Donald Trump has said things about immigrants and the U.S.-Mexico border that no other U.S. president has. But now he's reached directly into his predecessors' playbook by sending in the National Guard.

When former presidents George W. Bush and Barack Obama deployed the Guard to the border in 2006 and 2010, they were pushing Congress to pass wide-ranging overhauls of immigration policy. Both overhauls failed. A 2011 government review estimated the Bush and Obama deployments cost at least $1.3 billion.

Back to top


Trump is also trying to reshape immigration law. But Congress so far has funded a fraction of the border wall he promised during his campaign, so the president said this week he wants 2,000 to 4,000 Guard troops on the frontier until the wall goes up. Trump called the deployments crucial to helping the U.S. Border Patrol, which after a drop-off last year has returned to apprehending about as many people as it typically does.
https://www.usnews.com/news/best-states/texas/articles/2018-04-07/what-happened-when-bush-obama-sent-troops-to-mexico-border

May 7: The Trump administration will more frequently separate families at the southwest border under a new policy announced Monday.

The Homeland Security Department will refer “100 percent of illegal southwest border crossings“ to the Justice Department for prosecution under a federal statute that prohibits illegal entry, Attorney General Jeff Sessions said Monday.

Back to top


If you cross the border unlawfully, then we will prosecute you,” Sessions said at a press conference Monday afternoon near the U.S.-Mexico border in San Diego. “It’s that simple.”

“We don’t want to separate families, but we don't want families to come to the border illegally,” Sessions said Monday. “This is just the way the world works.”
https://www.politico.com/story/2018/05/07/trump-administration-family-separation-border-519220

May 30: How the Trump Administration Got Comfortable Separating Immigrant Kids from their Parents
https://www.newyorker.com/news/news-desk/how-the-trump-administration-got-comfortable-separating-immigrant-kids-from-their-parents

Back to top


June 1: No, Trump’s “family separation” policy at the border is not the same as Obama’s

Separating women and children who cross the border illegally predates Trump — but he has drastically ramped it up

There has always been a policy of separating children from parents at the border when the adults are facing criminal charges but — and it’s a big caveat — the current administration is manipulating the policy to deter migration.
https://www.salon.com/2018/06/01/no-trumps-migrant-family-separation-policy-is-not-the-same-as-obamas/

June 1: Dem leaders demand end to family separations at border
http://thehill.com/homenews/house/390256-dem-leaders-demand-end-to-family-separations-at-border

June 1: Protesters Across The U.S. Decry Policy Of Separating Immigrant Families
https://www.npr.org/2018/06/01/616257822/immigration-rights-activists-protest-trump-administration-child-separation-polic

Back to top


June 2: 77,000 cases involving migrant kids are stuck in limbo. Splitting up families will make it worse.
https://www.politico.com/interactives/2018/immigration-zero-tolerance-children-families-limbo/

June 3: A group of evangelical leaders is pleading with President Trump to find an alternate solution when it comes to separating children from their parents at the US border with Mexico.

A letter addressed to the president states in part, “As evangelical Christians guided by the Bible, one of our core convictions is that God has established the family as the fundamental building block of society. The state should separate families only in the rarest of instances. While illegal entry to the United States can be a misdemeanor criminal violation, past administrations have exercised discretion in determining when to charge individuals with this offense, taking into account the wellbeing of children who may also be involved. A “zero tolerance” policy removes that discretion with the effect of removing even small children from their parents. The traumatic effects of this separation on these young children, which could be devastating and long lasting, are of utmost concern.
http://www1.cbn.com/cbnnews/us/2018/june/separating-families-evangelical-leaders-plead-with-trump-to-address-border-concerns

Back to top


June 3: A Moral and Legal Abomination

The government has offered no substantive legal justification for the Trump administration’s policy of indefinitely separating children from their parents at the border.

On Thursday, Sen. Dianne Feinstein proposed a law that would bar the intentional separation of asylum-seeking parents from their children when they cross the border. “It’s hard to conceive of a policy more horrific than intentionally separating children from their parents as a form of punishment,” the California Democrat said in a statement publicizing the move.
https://slate.com/news-and-politics/2018/06/trumps-child-separation-policy-is-a-moral-and-constitutional-abomination.html

June 5: Today, the United Nation's human rights office denounced the US practice of separating children from their migrant and asylum seeker parents at the US border.

Back to top


In response, US Ambassador to the UN Nikki Haley bashed the organization, suggesting that the UN “ignorantly attack(ing)” the US was evidence of “hypocrisy.” While deflecting from the issue by pointing to the “reprehensible human rights records” of other countries sitting on the UN Human Rights Council, she added defiantly that “[n]either the United Nations nor anyone else will dictate how the United States upholds its borders.” But she misses the point.

Yes, the US does have a right to protect its borders – but not by trampling the rights of vulnerable families and children. The UN’s human rights office in Geneva, led by High Commissioner Zeid Ra’ad Al Hussein, has an admirable track record of shining a spotlight on human rights abuses around the world, and it’s to their credit that they didn’t shy away from criticizing this US policy. Human rights don’t end at border zones, after all.
https://www.hrw.org/news/2018/06/05/us-bashes-un-critiquing-trump-family-separation-policy

Back to top


June 5: Trump-Sessions family separation policy is not moral or required by law

Sessions and President Trump are erroneously leveraging the argument that “the law” is responsible for their own administration-enacted policies such as family separation on the border. In actuality, the attorney general and the president are using the legality argument as a guise to justify their inhumane immigration policies — and to increase immigrant detention and deterrence. They assume that if they posit a particular policy as being legal, even if there is no law requiring that policy, the majority of the American people will follow. 
https://www.usatoday.com/story/opinion/2018/06/05/trump-sessions-family-separation-border-immigration-column/668905002/

June 6: Despite Trump's Family Separation Threat, Border Arrests for Illegal Immigration Continue to Rise

More than 50,000 people were arrested crossing the U.S. southern border during the month of May, the Department of Homeland Security announced Wednesday, despite the Trump Administration’s crackdown on illegal immigration and threat to separate families at the border.
http://time.com/5303831/trump-illegal-immigration-border-arrests-may/

Back to top


June 6: President Donald Trump has said Democrats need to be pressured to end a "horrible law" that separates children from their parents at U.S. borders.

There is no law mandating the separation of families, contrary to Trump’s claims.

However, the Trump administration has introduced a "zero-tolerance" policy calling for the prosecution of all individuals who illegally enter the United States.

This policy has the effect of separating parents from their children when they enter the country together, because parents are referred for prosecution and the children are placed in the custody of a sponsor, such as a relative or foster home, or held in a shelter.

More than 650 children were separated from their parents during a two-week period in May as a result of the new approach being implemented.
http://www.politifact.com/truth-o-meter/article/2018/jun/06/what-you-need-know-about-trump-administrations-zer/

Back to top


June 7:
A federal judge in California ruled Wednesday that a challenge to the practice of separating parents seeking asylum from children at the border can proceed.

The ACLU brought the case against the Trump administration.

In his opinion, the Judge Dana Sabraw said "at a minimum, the facts alleged are sufficient to show the government conduct at issue 'shocks the conscience' and violates Plaintiffs' constitutional right to family integrity. Accordingly, Defendants' motion to dismiss Plaintiffs' due process claim is denied."
https://www.cnn.com/2018/06/07/politics/family-separation-ruling/index.html

June 7: [Judge Dana Sabraw]: Such conduct, if true… is brutal, offensive, and fails to comport with traditional notions of fair play and decency, The facts alleged are sufficient to show the government conduct at issue ‘shocks the conscience’ and violates Plaintiffs’ constitutional right to family integrity.
https://americasvoice.org/press_releases/district-judge-trump-family-separation-policy-brutal-offensive-and-fails-to-comport-with-traditional-notions-of-fair-play-and-decency/


Back to top


June 14: Sessions cites Bible in defense of breaking up families, blames migrant parents

The attorney general, in a speech to law enforcement officers in Indiana, called on his "church friends" not to blame him for the policy.
https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/immigration/sessions-cites-bible-defense-breaking-families-blames-migrant-parents-n883296

June 14: No, Jeff Sessions, Separating Kids From Their Parents Isn’t ‘Biblical’

Being a Protestant and all, Sessions has no fear of the kind of “canonical penalties” Catholic bishops might levy. But perhaps he is aware of an official resolution passed by his own United Methodist Church in 2008 (and reaffirmed in 2016), which reads in part:

Back to top


"The fear and anguish so many migrants in the United States live under are due to federal raids, indefinite detention, and deportations which tear apart families and create an atmosphere of panic. Millions of immigrants are denied legal entry to the US due to quotas and race and class barriers, even as employers seek their labor. US policies, as well as economic and political conditions in their home countries, often force migrants to leave their homes. With the legal avenues closed, immigrants who come in order to support their families must live in the shadows and in intense exploitation and fear. In the face of these unjust laws and the systematic deportation of migrants instituted by the Department of Homeland Security, God’s people must stand in solidarity with the migrants in our midst."

http://nymag.com/daily/intelligencer/2018/06/no-jeff-sessions-separating-families-isnt-biblical.html

June 15: It’s not just cruel to separate a breastfeeding baby from a mom. It’s medically dangerous.... The powerful “oxytocin reflex” helps explain why.

Back to top


... one of the most horrifying tales of family separation came this week in a CNN report of an undocumented migrant from Honduras whose daughter was taken away by federal immigration agents while she was breastfeeding in a detention center. When the mother tried to resist arrest, she was handcuffed, according to her lawyer Natalia Cornelio.

“Most of the administration’s critics would probably answer that the only humane option is to release the whole family together and find another way to monitor their cases to make sure they show up for their court dates. But that is the one option the administration refuses to put back on the table.”
https://www.vox.com/science-and-health/2018/6/15/17465306/children-immigrant-families-separated-breastfeeding-baby

Back to top


June 15: The Donald Trump Administration’s attack on families at the country’s southern border came to a new low yesterday, when Attorney General Jeff Sessions attempted to use the Bible to defend his cruel zero-tolerance policy that has ripped more than 1,300 children out of the loving arms of their parents.

Sessions cited Romans 13 and said we are called by the Bible to “obey the laws of the government.” During the White House press briefing, press secretary Sarah Sanders defended Sessions by saying, “It is very Biblical to enforce the law.”

But while Romans 13 calls Christians to be subject to governing authorities, it makes it clear that these authorities also have a great debt of responsibility to honor what is right: “Do you want to be free from fear of the one in authority? Then do what is right and you will be commended.” And what is right? The passage goes on to tell us the ultimate truth: “The commandments… are summed up in this one command: ‘Love your neighbor as yourself.’ Love does no harm to a neighbor. Therefore love is the fulfillment of the law.”

Back to top


There is no moral justification for taking children away from parents who are fit to care for them. And subjecting these already traumatized children to prison-like facilities is simply unconscionable.
http://time.com/5313878/jeff-sessions-left-out-the-key-part-of-the-bible-verse-he-used-to-rationalize-family-separation/

June 16: Trump hugs American flag at rally ... At one point during the rally, supporters in the crowd began a “build that wall” chant, at which point the presumptive GOP presidential nominee turned around and hugged an American flag on the stage. 
http://thehill.com/blogs/ballot-box/presidential-races/283159-trump-hugs-an-american-flag-at-his-rally

[Trump hugs a flag; a child cries upon separation from family during Trump Administration's zero tolerance policy]:
trump hugging flag     immigrant child crying
Trump photo as seen on The Hill; child photo as seen on CNN.

Back to top


June 17: Lock Kids Up – Trump’s Border “Solution” for Prison Profits

There is no end in sight on Trump’s “Zero Tolerance” policy. Trump wants to use the pain of these children as a way to negotiate for his “big, beautiful wall”, which nobody wants to pay for. Speaker Ryan has an alternate proposal, which involves incarcerating the entire family and then deporting them together. Democratic members of Congress continue to press for a comprehensive immigration plan, with an end to family separation, and a path to citizenship for DACA recipients and others.
http://www.coloradopols.com/diary/109331/internment-camps-for-children-americas-choice#sthash.hn6ycCvE.dpbs

June 18: The Trump administration's immigration "zero tolerance" policy that results in the separation of thousands of children from their families stoked outrage over the weekend, and several prominent Republicans sounded off.
https://www.cnn.com/2018/06/18/politics/republican-party-family-separation/index.html

Back to top


June 18: "In wire-mesh, chain linked cages that are about 30x30, a lot of young folks put into them. I must say though, far fewer than I was here two weeks ago.

"I was told that buses full (of children) were taken away before I arrived. That was one of my concerns, that essentially, when you have to give lengthy notice, you end up with a little bit of a show rather than seeing what's really going on in these centers."
https://www.ksat.com/news/video-inside-cpb-s-processing-detention-center-in-mcallen

June 18: Chain link fences, mattresses on the floor and families queuing to be processed — and oftentimes separated. These are the photos of the processing detention center in McAllen, Texas, that the Customs and Border Protection agency wants you to see.

More than 1,100 immigrants — including children — were being held at McAllen when reporters were allowed in Sunday.
http://fox5sandiego.com/2018/06/18/photos-inside-immigrant-processing-center-show-chain-link-fences-mattresses-on-floor/

Back to top


June 18: Attorney General Jeff Sessions and Department of Homeland Security Secretary Kirstjen Nielsen defended the Trump administration's enforcement of its "zero tolerance" policy, despite widespread outcry over treatment of children at the nation's border. Under the current policy, anyone suspected of crossing the border illegally faces criminal prosecution. Children traveling with adults are separated from their families and taken into U.S. custody. U.S. protocol prohibits detaining children with their parents because the children are not charged with a crime while the parents are.

"Surely it is the beginning of the unraveling of democracy when the body that makes the laws rather than change them asks the body that enforces them not to enforce the law, that cannot be the answer," she said. 

Nielsen added, "Illegal actions have and must have consequences, no more free passes, no more get out of jail free cards. In communities every day, if you commit a crime police will take you to jail regardless of whether you have a family."

Back to top


"We do not have the luxury of pretending that all individuals coming to this country as a family unit are in fact a family," said Nielsen. 

Sessions, meanwhile, blamed previous administrations for allowing "loopholes" that led to immigrants crossing the border illegally with children, effectively given them immunity from prosecution.
https://www.cbsnews.com/news/jeff-sessions-addresses-nations-sheriffs-amid-outcry-over-immigration-live-stream/

June 18: If President Trump’s new “zero-tolerance” policy of separating immigrant children from their parents at the border was intended to pressure Democrats, it is backfiring badly—among Democrats, as expected, but among Republicans as well. Rupert Murdoch’s New York Post, whose editorial page consistently backs the president,
wrote on Sunday that “It’s not just that this looks terrible in the eyes of the world. It is terrible.”
https://www.brookings.edu/blog/fixgov/2018/06/18/trumps-zero-tolerance-immigration-policy-puts-republicans-in-jeopardy/

Back to top


June 18: Two-thirds of Americans disapprove of the Trump administration's practice of taking undocumented immigrant children from their families and putting them in government facilities on US borders, according to a CNN poll conducted by SSRS. Only 28% approve.

But among Republicans, there is majority support for the policy that has resulted in an uptick of children being separated from their families.
http://www.azfamily.com/story/38450381/majority-oppose-policy-that-causes-family-separation-but-republicans-approve

June 18: The Trump administration's "zero tolerance" policy that calls for all migrants caught crossing the border for the first time to be charged with illegal entry ends up systematically separating families because children can't go with their parents who are being detained by the US Marshals.

But people charged with illegal entry go before a judge within days or weeks of their detention and are usually sentenced to time served for the misdemeanor. There appears to be no set procedure for what happens with parent and child after that.
https://www.buzzfeed.com/adolfoflores/dhs-border-patrol-ice-orr-no-reunification-children-parents?utm_term=.fswwgER8K#.rb5KrXezR

Back to top


June 18: Hillary Clinton tears into Trump immigration policy: Calling family separation the law is 'an outright lie'

Clinton on Monday also criticized Attorney General Jeff Sessions for invoking the Bible to defend the policy.

“Those who selectively use the Bible to justify this cruelty are ignoring a central tenet of Christianity,” she said.

“What is being done using the name of religion is contrary to everything I was ever taught,” she said. “Jesus said ‘suffer the little children unto me,’ he did not say ‘let the children suffer.’ ”
http://thehill.com/blogs/blog-briefing-room/392819-hillary-clinton-tears-into-trump-immigration-policy-calling-family

June 19: An irate President Trump on Tuesday defied mounting bipartisan pressure to end his zero-tolerance policy of taking migrant children away from their parents — and charged that Democrats want “illegal immigrants” to “infest” the US.

Back to top


“Democrats are the problem. They don’t care about crime and want illegal immigrants, no matter how bad they may be, to pour into and infest our Country, like MS-13. They can’t win on their terrible policies, so they view them as potential voters!”

And he defended his policy, saying that “only 2,000” children have been taken away from their parents.

“We must always arrest people coming into our Country illegally. .."
https://nypost.com/2018/06/19/trump-dems-want-illegal-immigrants-to-infest-us/

June 19: While speaking to the National Federation of Independent Businesses, President Trump said "you have to take children away" to prosecute parents for coming to the US illegally.
https://www.msn.com/en-us/video/news/trump-take-children-away-to-prosecute-parents/vi-AAyRXNw

Back to top


June 19: Trump Separation Policy Backlash: Governors Refuse to Send National Guard to Border Over 'Inhumane' Treatment of Children
http://www.newsweek.com/trump-separation-policy-backlash-governors-refusing-send-national-guard-border-982946

June 19: When Attorney General Jeff Sessions used the Bible last week to justify the horrendous and vile practice of separating children from their parents at the border, he signaled a new low in contemporary American politics of using religious doctrine to justify doing harm to children. Actually, this isn’t a new low. The Bible has long been used as the foundational holy text of white supremacist doctrine in this country. Slave masters preached a Christianity to black enslaved people that included Scriptures like “servants, in reverent fear of God submit yourselves to your masters, not only to those who are good and considerate, but also to those who are harsh” (1 Peter 2:18).
https://www.cosmopolitan.com/politics/a21602198/jeff-sessions-bible-family-separation-policy/

Back to top


June 19: Members of Jeff Sessions' own church filed a formal complaint against the attorney general, accusing him of "child abuse," "immorality," and "racial discrimination" and the “dissemination of doctrines contrary to the established standards of doctrines” of the United Methodist Church.

Last week, Sessions cited the Bible in his defense of the administration's border policy separating children from their parents after they enter the U.S. illegally, which he issued last month.

In the letter, church members took issue with this characterization, criticizing Sessions' "misuse of Romans 13 to indicate the necessity of obedience to secular law, which is in stark contrast to Disciplinary commitments to supporting freedom of conscience and resistance to unjust laws."
https://abcnews.go.com/Politics/hundreds-sessions-church-file-formal-complaint-accusing-child/story?id=56003177&cid=clicksource_4380645_2_three_posts_card_hed

Back to top


June 20: The solution to the crisis of family separation at the US-Mexico border, the Trump administration has decided, is to get rid of a 1997 federal court decision that strictly limits the government’s ability to keep children in immigration detention.

The administration has fingered Flores v. Reno, or the “Flores settlement,” as the reason it is “forced” to separate parents from their children to prosecute them. It claims that because it cannot keep parents and children in immigration detention together, it has no choice but to detain parents in immigration detention (after they’ve been criminally prosecuted for illegal entry) and send the children to the Department of Health and Human Services as “unaccompanied alien children.”

The Flores settlement requires the federal government to do two things: to place children with a close relative or family friend “without unnecessary delay,” rather than keeping them in custody; and to keep immigrant children who are in custody in the “least restrictive conditions” possible.
https://www.vox.com/2018/6/20/17484546/executive-order-family-separation-flores-settlement-agreement-immigration

Back to top


June 20: American Airlines to Trump: Don’t put separated migrant kids on our flights

American Airlines does not want the US government to use its planes to transport the immigrant children torn from their families as a result of the Trump administration’s controversial border policy.

“We bring families together, not apart,” the Fort Worth, Texas-based airline said in a strongly-worded statement Wednesday.

The airline acknowledged that it has contracts with the federal government that have previously involved transporting refugees to be reunited with their families.
https://nypost.com/2018/06/20/american-airlines-to-trump-dont-put-separated-migrant-kids-on-our-flights/

June 20: Three U.S. airlines — American, United and Frontier — on Wednesday asked the federal government not to use their airlines to transport children who were separated from their families under a controversial immigration policy.

Back to top


The airlines responded after reports that claimed migrant children separated from their parents were transported on some flights.
https://www.cnbc.com/2018/06/20/airlines-dont-put-migrant-children-separated-from-family-on-planes.html

June 20: President Trump on Wednesday signed an executive order to allow children to stay with parents caught crossing the border illegally -- moving to stop the family separations that have triggered a national outcry and political crisis for Republicans. 

... Trump said he wants to keep families together while also enforcing border security. He vowed his administration's "zero tolerance" policy for illegal immigration would continue. 

The separations stem from the administration's "zero tolerance" immigration policy, which aims to prosecute all illegal border crossers. But because of a 1997 order and related decisions, children cannot be detained for longer than 20 days with the adults. 
http://www.foxnews.com/politics/2018/06/20/trump-signs-executive-order-to-stop-family-separations-at-border.html

Back to top


June 20: How bad is it in the countries these families are fleeing? This bad ....

We've been bombarded by arguments about whether parents and children crossing the US-Mexican border without documentation should be separated. But we seldom hear how dire life is in these migrants' homelands.

A snapshot of the countries they're fleeing shows the nightmares they're trying to escape ...
https://www.cnn.com/2018/06/20/americas/separated-families-countries-snapshots/

June 20: A Republican congressional candidate in New York said Tuesday that the sounds of crying immigrant children separated from their parents at the border were the "same exact" sounds heard at any daycare when a parent leaves for work.

"I think it's extremely unfortunate. But what people are forgetting -- they just want to listen to those tapes -- I can take you to any nursery and you're going to hear the same exact things as a mother leaves to go to work and has to leave her child at daycare. You're going to hear those same exact things," Michael Grimm, who is running for the Republican nomination in New York's 11th Congressional District, told NY1.
https://www.cnn.com/2018/06/20/politics/grimm-comments-on-kids-at-border/

Back to top


June 20: Here Are the Facts About President Trump's Family Separation Policy
http://time.com/5314769/family-separation-policy-donald-trump/

June 20: The convicted tax cheat, running for his old congressional seat, said Americans shouldn’t put too much stock into recordings recently released of children sobbing at immigration shelters after they’d been taken from their parents at the border.
https://nypost.com/2018/06/20/grimm-compares-kids-crying-at-border-to-daycare-drop-off/

June 20: Along with detaining migrants who illegally cross the border and separating them from their children, ICE has locked up thousands of other non-citizens with deep roots in their communities under the Trump administration’s orders, a new report said Wednesday.

Those detained and separated from their families include people with little or no criminal record who have lived in the US for years, such as Pablo Villavicencio, a pizza deliveryman arrested for being in the country illegally after he took food to a Brooklyn military base.

Back to top


In earlier years, ICE would have released many of these people on bond soon after their arrest, allowing them to live with their families while awaiting legal proceedings that can take years, Reuters reported.

Now, ICE denies bond for many of those people and pushes to keep them locked up for the duration of their cases, the news service found, based on an analysis of government data and dozens of interviews with immigration judges, lawyers and current and former officials.
https://nypost.com/2018/06/20/ice-has-unwillingness-to-give-bond-to-locked-up-immigrants/

June 21: Stephen Miller: Trump's Advisor Behind Separating Families
http://www.wbur.org/onpoint/2018/06/21/stephen-miller-trumps-advisor-behind-separating-families

Back to top


June 21: Melania Trump has made a surprise visit to the US-Mexico border a day after the president retreated on immigration policy and signed an executive order to end his policy of family separations amid enormous political pressure.

The first lady was taking part in briefings and attending a tour of a “nonprofit social services center for children who have entered the United States illegally and a customs and border patrol processing center”, according to a statement from her office.

Sitting at a table with officials at a center in McAllen, Texas, she said: “How can I help these families reunite with their children as quickly as possible?”
https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2018/jun/21/melania-trump-family-child-separation-detention-centre-visit-surprise

Back to top


June 21: Michael Cohen Cites Holocaust Survivor Parents to Blast Trump in Quitting RNC

As the son of a Polish Holocaust survivor, the images and sounds of this family separation policy is heart wrenching,' Cohen wrote in a letter to the Republican National Committee
https://www.haaretz.com/us-news/michael-cohen-blasts-trump-in-quitting-rnc-1.6197908

June 21: A child's anguish meets America's indifference on new TIME cover
Time immigration Welcome to America cover Trump towering over child
https://www.cnn.com/2018/06/21/us/time-immigration-cover-june-magazine-trnd/index.html

Back to top


June 22: Time cover backlash: Magazine stands by illustration of crying girl next to Trump

Reporters began searching for more information about the little girl, who for many, reminded them of their own children in her red sneakers, jeans, long sleeve shirt and curly dark hair.

Soon reports began to emerge, citing the girl's father, who is still in Honduras, and Customs and Border Protection, who said she was not separated from her mother.

Time magazine, however, stands by the cover.

"The June 12 photograph of the 2-year-old Honduran girl became the most visible symbol of the ongoing immigration debate in America for a reason: Under the policy enforced by the administration, prior to its reversal this week, those who crossed the border illegally were criminally prosecuted, which in turn resulted in the separation of children and parents. Our cover and our reporting capture the stakes of this moment," Time's editor-in-chief Edward Felsenthal said in a statement to CNN .
http://money.cnn.com/2018/06/22/media/time-cover-photo-critics/index.html

Back to top


June 22: The crying girl on the magazine’s cover wasn’t separated from her mom at the border. But 2,300 other children were.
https://www.vox.com/policy-and-politics/2018/6/22/17494688/time-magazine-cover-crying-girl-photo-controversy-family-separation

June 22: Trump accuses Dems of 'phony stories' of sadness on border, seeks delay on immigration fix until after midterms

"Republicans should stop wasting their time on Immigration until after we elect more Senators and Congressmen/women in November," Trump tweeted.
https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/immigration/reversal-trump-suddenly-calls-lawmakers-stall-immigration-action-until-after-n885661

June 22:
Donald Trump has always proudly paraded his Time Magazine covers but the latest may not make it on to the walls at the golf club.

The powerful image on this week’s cover depicts the US president looking down at a sobbing two-year-old girl next to the caption “Welcome to America”.
https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2018/jun/22/time-magazine-puts-trump-opposite-sobbing-child-on-cover

Back to top


June 23: Chanting protesters briefly blocked a bus leaving a migrant detention center in McAllen, Texas, on Saturday afternoon.

Protesters stood in front of the bus and yelled, "Set the children free" and "Shame on you" at Border Patrol officers. The Border Patrol ended up surrounding the bus so it could back up and go out the other end of the street.

CNN reporters could see children through the darkened windows, and a protester told CNN she also saw children through the windows. She said some of the children waved at her and she told them, "You are not alone" in Spanish.
https://www.cnn.com/2018/06/23/us/texas-detention-center-bus-protest/index.html

June 25: Rep. Maxine Waters claimed the favor of the Almighty during a speech at a Capitol Hill "Keep Families Together" rally on Saturday. She said cabinet members and highly visible Trump enablers should expect harassment at restaurants, gas stations, shopping places, and even their homes until they change their immigration policy. Several have already been confronted at public places.
https://www.realclearpolitics.com/video/2018/06/25/maxine_waters_god_is_on_our_side.html

Back to top


June 25: Trump issues thinly-veiled threat against congresswoman Maxine Waters

The president also lied about what she said.
https://thinkprogress.org/trump-maxine-waters-threat-6e9bc9f0a7f4/

On Twitter: Congresswoman Maxine Waters, an extraordinarily low IQ person, has become, together with Nancy Pelosi, the Face of the Democrat Party. She has just called for harm to supporters, of which there are many, of the Make America Great Again movement. Be careful what you wish for Max!
June 25
@realDonaldTrump

Back to top


June 25: Maxine Waters reads list of times Trump has called for violence

The Democrat again disputed that she had told her supporters to physical harm Trump supporters.

“Protest is about peaceful resistance to the kind of actions that we are experiencing from this president,” she added. 
http://thehill.com/homenews/house/394087-maxine-waters-reads-list-of-times-trump-has-called-for-violence

June 25: Pelosi rebukes Democratic Rep. Maxine Waters for urging supporters to confront Trump administration officials

In a tweeted statement Monday referencing Waters' comments, Pelosi said that "Trump's daily lack of civility has provoked responses that are predictable but unacceptable." She added: "As we go forward, we must conduct elections in a way that achieves unity from sea to shining sea."
https://www.cnbc.com/2018/06/25/nancy-pelosi-rebukes-maxine-waters-for-comments-on-trump-administratio.html

Back to top


June 25: Democrats — and Trump — push back on Maxine Waters’s calls for confrontation

Maxine Waters called for supporters to confront members of the Trump administration in public. Democrats don’t exactly agree.
https://www.vox.com/2018/6/25/17501450/maxine-waters-trump-pelosi-civility-sarah-sanders

June 25: Democrats call out Maxine Waters for encouraging incivility
http://video.foxnews.com/v/5801794474001/?#sp=show-clips

June 25: With help from Fox News, Trump pushes brazen lie about his family separation policy

But it’s simply not the case that Trump’s policy is the same as Obama’s.

It is true that family separations happened during Obama. As former homeland security secretary Jeh Johnson recently explained to NPR, “I can’t say that it never happened. There may have been some exigent situation, some emergency… There may have been some doubt about whether the adult accompanying the child was in fact the parent of the child.”

Back to top


But ... separations did not happen “as a matter of policy or practice. It’s not something that I could ask our Border Patrol or our immigration enforcement personnel to do.”
https://thinkprogress.org/trump-fox-news-brazen-lie-immigration-family-separation-policy-b0aa1d66051d/

June 25: The Government Had No Intention of Reuniting Separated Families ... There’s also no plan to do so now.

For some period of time, which may or may not be ongoing, the U.S. Justice Department was routinely treating parents who were caught having crossed into the U.S. without border inspection (a misdemeanor offense) as criminals to be briefly incarcerated pending a hearing and then placed in immigration detention. Additionally, Customs and Border Protection was often separating parents and kids who legally presented themselves at a border-inspection point, seeking asylum. Under the new policy, children in either case were removed and placed first in shelters and eventually in foster care or other centers. Some members of the Trump administration persistently denied that this was a policy. Others, including the president, bragged about it.
https://slate.com/news-and-politics/2018/06/donald-trumps-family-separation-the-government-had-no-intention-of-reuniting-parents-and-children.html

Back to top


June 25: Parents who cross illegally from Mexico to the United States with their children will not face prosecution for the time being because the government is running short of space to house them, officials said on Monday.

White House spokeswoman Sarah Sanders said the administration was not dropping its policy of “zero-tolerance” of illegal immigration but it needed a “temporary solution” until it can house migrant families.
https://www.reuters.com/article/us-usa-immigration/illegal-immigrant-parents-not-facing-us-prosecution-for-now-idUSKBN1JL1DS

June 26: Ex-secret service agent: Maxine Waters' comments are dangerous
https://www.cnn.com/2018/06/25/opinions/ex-secret-service-agent-says-waters-comments-are-dangerous-wackrow/index.html

Back to top


June 26: Republican lawmaker introduces motion asking for Maxine Waters' resignation
http://www.foxnews.com/politics/2018/06/26/republican-lawmaker-introduces-motion-asking-for-maxine-waters-resignation.html

June 27: American Jews turn on Trump's senior advisor

Stephen Miller, who was believed to be the mastermind behind the American president's immigration policy of separating families, has recently caught the ire of members of the Jewish community in the US who have vowed to distance themselves from him.
https://www.ynetnews.com/articles/0,7340,L-5296109,00.html

June 27: Will Trump Administration Reunite Families Within 30 Days After Federal Court Ruling?

A federal judge has given the Trump administration 30 days to reunify the thousands of families separated by immigration agents at the U.S.-Mexico border and ruled that U.S. immigration agents can no longer separate children from their parents. 

Back to top


U.S. District Court Judge Dana Sabraw issued the ruling late Tuesday evening, granting the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) a preliminary injunction in a lawsuit filed over the family separation policy. 

In her ruling, which was published online by the ACLU, Sabraw said the "facts set before the court portray reactive governance responses to address a chaotic circumstance of the government's own making" and warrant "the extraordinary remedy of classwide preliminary injunction." 

"They belie measured and ordered governance, which is central to the concept of due process enshrined in our Constitution," the judge said, adding: "This is particularly so in the treatment of migrants, many of whom are asylum seekers, and small children."
http://www.newsweek.com/will-trump-administration-reunite-families-within-30-days-after-federal-court-996764

June 27: The Trump administration struggled Wednesday with how to abide by a federal judge’s order requiring that thousands of migrant children who were forcibly separated from their parents be reunited within 30 days.
https://www.apnews.com/417932ed67fd420297bd29ea4e087f16

Back to top


June 28: Thousands of kids still haven't been reunited with their parents.

The clock is ticking. A judge's ruling Monday laid out a series of deadlines the government must meet:

• Within 10 days (by July 6), officials must make sure every separated parent has a way to contact their child.

• Within 14 days (by July 10), children under 5 must be reunited with their parents

• Within 30 days (by July 26), all children must be reunited with their parents.
https://www.cnn.com/2018/06/28/us/separated-families-reunions-protests/index.html

June 28: Will President Trump Ignore the Court Order Against His Lawless Family Separation Policy?

The crisis is nowhere near over.
https://slate.com/news-and-politics/2018/06/will-president-trump-ignore-the-court-order-against-his-family-separation-policy.html

Back to top


July 5: The Trump administration just admitted it doesn’t know how many kids are still separated from their parents

The department that separated families at the border didn’t talk to the agency that took custody of separated kids.
https://www.vox.com/2018/7/5/17536984/children-separated-parents-border-how-many


July 5: HHS now estimates under 3,000 kids separated from parents in government custody

New estimate nearly 50% higher than last figure
https://www.channel3000.com/news/politics/national-politics/revised-hhs-estimate-nearly-3000-kids-separated-from-parents/763537543

Back to top


July 5: U.S. has nearly 3,000 separated migrant kids, will use DNA to find parents

Azar also said some children who are part of the nearly 3,000 may not qualify for reunification because they became separated from their parents during their journey and not by U.S. border agents.
https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/immigration/u-s-has-nearly-3-000-separated-migrant-kids-will-n888986

July 5: U.S. Judge Dana Sabraw in San Diego last month ordered the government to stop separating children from immigrant parents entering the United States illegally and set deadlines for the government to reunite families.

The U.S. government is moving some migrant parents to detention sites closer to the young children they were separated from while crossing the U.S.-Mexico border in an attempt to meet a court-imposed deadline to reunify families, U.S. Secretary of Health and Human Services Alex Azar said on Thursday.

Back to top

The U.S. government is moving some migrant parents to detention sites closer to the young children they were separated from while crossing the U.S.-Mexico border in an attempt to meet a court-imposed deadline to reunify families, U.S. Secretary of Health and Human Services Alex Azar said on Thursday.
https://www.reuters.com/article/us-usa-immigration-children/u-s-moving-some-detained-migrant-parents-closer-to-their-children-idUSKBN1JV2FH

July 6: ...Donald Trump has no answers for the border crisis. And things are about to get worse.

Trump's solution to stop the family separations at the border -- an executive order that allows children to be detained with their parents -- is a stop-gap solution that is about to expire. Why? Because Trump's executive order did not override a Supreme Court decision from the early 1990s that says a child cannot be held in a detention facility for more than 20 days. Which means that on or around July 10 -- 20 days from Trump's signing of the EO on June 20 -- border enforcement officials will be required to start separating families currently being held in detention centers.

Back to top


In short: The family separation crisis is likely to get worse -- and soon.
https://www.cnn.com/2018/07/05/politics/immigration-separation-border-trump/index.html

July 6: Rivera: Trump made 'terrible mistake' with family separation
http://video.foxnews.com/v/5806145760001/?#sp=show-clips

July 24: The Trump administration may have deported up to 463 parents of children separated by immigration officials at the border, even as their children remain in U.S. custody. A federal judge has ordered the Trump administration to reunite all separated migrant children and parents by July 26th—that’s Thursday. But new government filings reveal nearly 500 of these parents are no longer in the country. In total, at least 1,700 children are still in U.S. custody, waiting to be reunited with their parents.
https://www.democracynow.org/2018/7/24/headlines/trump_admin_may_have_deported_up_to_463_parents_of_children_separated_at_border

July 27: The next family separation crisis: Finding hundreds of deported parents

Back to top


Immigrant advocacy groups are gearing up to track down more than 400 parents who were separated from their children and deported without them.

The challenge is so daunting that government attorneys have bristled every time it's come up in court.

"It's going to be really hard detective work," said Lee Gelernt, an American Civil Liberties Union attorney who's been leading the organization's lawsuit over separated families.
https://www.cnn.com/2018/07/27/politics/deported-parents-search/index.html

July 27: Wife of a former US Marine is facing deportation to Mexico

The Davenport resident has no criminal record but faces a removal order over her 1998 illegal entry into the United States, Soto said. She's married to a former Marine and Iraq War veteran, and they have two girls, ages 8 and 16, who are US citizens.

... her teen daughter will stay with her father in Florida while the younger one will go with her to Mexico if she's deported. "My heart is torn apart," ...
https://www.cnn.com/2018/07/27/us/florida-marine-wife-to-be-deported/

Back to top


July 28: Some of the kids in U.S. custody may never see their parents again

We haven't seen their faces. We don't know their names. We only know a number: 711.

That's how many immigrant kids from separated families remain in custody, according to the latest government tally.

Officials say that, for various reasons, their families weren't eligible for reunification by Thursday's deadline. They might be in the future, although a former head of Immigration and Customs Enforcement warned this week that some of the children might never see their parents again.
https://www.cnn.com/2018/07/28/politics/separated-kids-what-next/index.html


August 8: Family separations haven’t deterred migrants from trying to enter US
https://nypost.com/2018/08/08/family-separations-havent-deterred-migrants-from-trying-to-enter-us/

Back to top


August 30: Hundreds of children separated from their parents at the U.S.-Mexico border remain separated, according to a court filing on Thursday.

The filing from the Justice Department and American Civil Liberties Union shows that 497 children remain in U.S. government custody, CNN reports.

Twenty-two of those children are under the age of 5, according to the report. The parents of 322 children have been deported, including the parents of six children 4 years old or younger, CNN reported.

Only 14 children were reunited with their parents since last week, according to the government. In total, 1,937 children have been reunited with their parents by the Trump administration.
http://thehill.com/homenews/administration/404497-trump-administration-identifies-497-migrant-children-still-in-custody

September 7: As 400+ Children Remain Separated from Parents, Trump Admin Wants to Detain Kids Indefinitely
https://www.democracynow.org/2018/9/7/as_400_children_remain_separated_from

Back to top


October 1: Trump’s Child-Detention Crisis Is Getting Worse

Under cover of darkness, the federal government has been moving hundreds of children a week to a sprawling tent city near the Rio Grande.
https://www.vanityfair.com/news/2018/10/donald-trump-child-detention-crisis-is-getting-worse

October 11: Six months after US officials separated them at the border, ICE put a 4-year-old girl on a plane to Guatemala this week so she could be reunited with her father.

But there was one major problem, according to advocates who worked on the case: The man didn't learn his daughter was coming until 30 minutes before her flight was set to land in Guatemala City.
https://www.cnn.com/2018/10/11/us/ice-separated-families/

October 15: Administration officials are weighing a proposal that could result in parents and kids once again being split up by the US government -- but this time, it would be the parents' choice.

Back to top


The proposal would give detained immigrant families two options: remain detained together while their case works its way through the system, or allow children to be released from custody after 20 days while their parents stay behind bars.
https://www.cnn.com/2018/10/15/politics/immigration-family-separations-binary-choice/index.html

November 26: Pushing back against an explosive "60 Minutes" report about his immigration policies, President Donald Trump revived false claims that downplay his controversial practice of separating immigrant families at the southern border.

The episode of "60 Minutes" highlighted the saga of more than 2,600 children who were separated from their parents after illegally entering the US this year. The report revealed that the policy began earlier than acknowledged and detailed an internal probe at the Department of Homeland Security that found major problems with the plan's implementation, including that computer systems erased data meant to link children to their parents, complicating efforts to reunite families later on.
https://www.cnn.com/2018/11/26/politics/trump-family-separation/index.html


Back to top


November 28: Families still being separated at border — months after Trump’s ‘zero tolerance’ policy reversed

The Trump administration has quietly resumed separating immigrant families at the border, in some cases using vague or unsubstantiated allegations of wrongdoing or minor violations against the parents, including charges of illegally re-entering the country, as justification.

Over the last three months, lawyers at Catholic Charities, which provides legal services to immigrant children in government custody in New York, have discovered at least 16 new separation cases. They say they have come across such instances by chance and via their own sleuthing after children were put into temporary foster care and shelters with little or no indication that they arrived at the border with their parents.

“If the authorities have even the most specious evidence that a parent was a gang member, or had some kind of blemish on their record,” said Neha Desai, a senior attorney at the National Center for Youth Law, “anything they can come up with to say that the separation is for the health and welfare of the child, then they’ll separate them.”
https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/politics/elections/2018/11/27/donald-trump-zero-tolerance-policy-border-migrants-families-separated-immigration/2132426002/

Back to top


November 29: Baltimore sues Trump administration over immigration policy

Baltimore filed a federal lawsuit on Wednesday against the Trump administration alleging that "unlawful" efforts altering a State Department policy are restricting visa applicants and deterring law-abiding immigrants from claiming public assistance.

In its lawsuit, Baltimore asserts the U.S. State Department earlier this year quietly expanded its definition of "public charge" — someone the United States deems likely to be primarily dependent on government aid. It says the change is not only frightening legally entitled immigrants from applying for public programs but impeding otherwise eligible immigrants from entering the country in the first place.
https://www.delawareonline.com/story/news/2018/11/29/baltimore-sues-trump-administration-over-immigration-policy/2146878002/

December 18: Thousands of Migrant Children Could Be Released With Trump’s Major Policy Reversal

Federal officials have reversed course and announced they will reduce fingerprint requirements of potential sponsors for detained children.
https://www.texasmonthly.com/news/trump-fingerprint-policy-change-reduce-migrant-children-detention-tornillo/

-- 2019 --

Back to top


January 17: The Trump administration most likely separated thousands more children from their parents at the Southern border than was previously believed, according to a report by government inspectors released on Thursday.

The federal government has reported that nearly 3,000 children were forcibly separated from their parents under last year’s “zero tolerance” immigration policy, under which nearly all adults entering the country illegally were prosecuted, and any children accompanying them were put into shelters or foster care.

But even before the administration officially unveiled the zero-tolerance policy in the spring of 2018, staff of the United States Department of Health and Human Services, the agency that oversees the care of children in federal custody, had noted a “sharp increase” in the number of children separated from a parent or guardian, according to the report from the agency’s Office of Inspector General.
https://www.nytimes.com/2019/01/17/us/family-separation-trump-administration-migrants.html


Back to top


February 12: The Trump Administration Wants to Detain Migrant Kids at Toxic Waste Sites (Updated)

Thousands of migrant children would be held "on top of and in close proximity to toxic waste sites" if the Trump administration gets its way.
https://rewire.news/article/2019/02/12/the-trump-administration-wants-to-detain-migrant-kids-at-toxic-waste-sites/


-- 2020 --

Back to top





 Webpage visitor counts provided by





 

copyr 2018 trump-news-history.com, Minneapolis, MN