Nearly a thousand migrant children separated from their parents under the mandate of former US President Donald Trump have still not been reunited, the administration of his Democratic successor said on Thursday.
Eager to rectify what he saw as a “national disgrace,” Joe Biden had set up a cell upon his arrival at the White House dedicated to identifying and locating the families of migrants separated under his Republican predecessor’s mandate became.
“To date, the task force has identified 3,924 children who were separated from their families between 2017 and 2021,” of whom 998 have still not been reunited with their parents, the Department of Homeland Security said after two years of work.
148 of them are “in the process” of joining them and “183 families have been informed of the possibility of reunion,” he added in a press release.
“We understand that this important work is not yet finished,” commented the Minister of Internal Security Alejandro Mayorkas. “The task force continues to seek to contact separated families to offer them the opportunity to be reunited in the United States,” he added.
In 2017, the administration of Donald Trump, which had made fighting illegal immigration a hallmark of his presidency, floated the idea of separating the families of migrants who entered the United States illegally as a deterrent.
Their so-called “zero tolerance” policy was officially implemented in April 2018. It was to institute criminal proceedings against anyone entering illegally at the border with Mexico. Consequence: The parents could be immediately taken into custody without their children.
The tragedies experienced by these families had sparked an outcry even within Republican ranks, so much so that in June 2018, Donald Trump ordered an end to it, a judge who in turn ordered the reunification of separated families.
More than 2,000 children were subsequently returned to their parents.
But at the same time, Donald Trump’s administration had continued to separate families by relying on the rule allowing an undocumented parent to be arrested and deported if they committed a serious crime. According to the associations, he had hijacked this rule in order to apply it to minor offences, especially traffic offences.