Biden To Allow Some Separated Migrant Families To Reunite In The United States

Speaker 1: 00:00 About 500 children separated from their parents at the U S Mexico border under the Trump administration have still not been reunited with their families as part of a task force plan to find and reunite families. The U S announced this week that a lawful pathway is being considered to allow those parents to reunite and stay with their children in the U S department of Homeland security. Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas says the administration is also working with central American nations to help find the parents may. Arcus also urge patients as the Biden administration works to restore an immigration system that he says has been badly dismantled. During the Trump years, joining me is legal learned. He is deputy director of the ACLU immigrants rights project, and Lee, welcome to the program. Speaker 2: 00:48 Thanks for having me. Can Speaker 1: 00:49 You remind us why it's so difficult to find the parents of these children? Speaker 2: 00:54 The Trump administration did not give us the full list of parents till very, very late in the litigation. And then once they gave us the list of names, they failed to disclose contact information, phone numbers addresses till very, very recently toward the end of the Trump administration, beyond that it is difficult and dangerous to search for families. If we don't have phone numbers, COVID has made it even more difficult. And so these remaining 500 families that we haven't found are ones where we do not have working phone numbers for the families and have to undergo searches on the ground. But one thing that I think is critical for people to understand is there are many more families than 500, but remained separated the 500 or just the families that we have not yet been able to locate. We have located hundreds and hundreds of other families who we are in contact with, but remain separated because of the Trump administration gave them only two brutal choices, stay separated from your child, or bring your child back to the very danger from which they fled. Many parents understandably chose not to bring their child back because it was essentially a death sentence for the child. So we are looking for the Biden administration, not only to help us find the remaining 500, but to reunite all of the families that were separated by the Trump administration. Those we have already found, and those we hopeful find fairly soon, but at the end of the day, Trump administration separated more than 5,500 children, many just babies and toddlers. So there's a lot of work to be done beyond just fighting the last 500. Speaker 1: 02:38 What has been the protocol for reuniting families until now can't those families stay in the U S Speaker 2: 02:44 So the families where the, both the parent and child were in the U S have largely been reunited. The problem is that the Trump administration deported hundreds and hundreds of parents without their children. And so not only have we had to locate the parent, usually in central America and locate the child in the us, but then we needed to get them reunited. Trump administration would not allow them to be reunited in the United States through a court order. We have gotten some of the parents back to the United States, but that has been the process up until now is going through the court, which is, can be a slow process and a difficult one. What we are hoping is that the Biden administration now creates a streamlined process to allow the parents to return to the United States, to be with their children. That's what we believe these parents and children are owed. You know, what medical groups have said is this was straight out child abuse by the United States government, the least we can do now is allow them to reunify and safety in the United States, give them permanent status and give them some restitution. When we are talking about it in president Biden's words, a real moral and national state, and I've been doing this work nearly 30 years, and I've never seen anything that re remotely comes to this level of, of horror Speaker 1: 04:08 Secretary. Mayorkas made a point in urging patients as the Biden administration tries to reconstitute a workable immigration system. Would you agree that much of that system was dismantled under the Trump administration? Speaker 2: 04:22 We would, but I think there's a difference between getting the system up and running and delaying indefinitely. But I want to, I want to make a one introductory point about this is that the family separation issue can be tackled immediately. The parents, the 5,500 parents who are separated, can be dealt with distinctly and immediately. Um, and I don't think actually secretary of my orcas was talking about the family separation practice. When he said that we need time to build up the asylum system. I think he was talking about allowing new people in at the border. And so we are sympathetic to what the byte administration faces, given how the Trump administration dismantled the asylum system, but we do think they can be doing more right now and doing it quicker. So while we, you know, we are sympathetic, we do want to see concrete action. And I think at some point advocates on the ground will lose patients with two slower process. Speaker 1: 05:24 So what are the next steps in getting the rest of the children reunited with their families? Speaker 2: 05:28 There's two steps. One is that we need to continue to find these families. And that's been done by the HCLU and a steering committee and other groups through the missile litigation, the ACLU brought. Um, and then the other part is for the families that we have found immediately getting their names to the Biden administration task force, to have them be given permission, to come back to the United States, to reunite with their children and some of these children, two or three old, haven't seen their parents in years, you know, more than half their life for almost their entire life. And so to immediately get those parents back. So we will be giving the byte administration the names of families that have been separated. We have already found and hope that they give those families immediate permission to return. Once here, we expect them not to be deported and for a pathway to permanent permitted status, um, be explored. Speaker 2: 06:24 And hopefully that can be done as well as restitution. The families need basic necessities. They also critically need trauma care help. I mean, these are children that are, are, have been traumatized so severely, perhaps permanent what the medical community says somewhat. Some of the trauma has been so severe that likely their brain structure has literally changed. So we'll be looking for full relief for those families and, you know, feeding the names of those families that we have found immediately to the Biden ministration. But at the same time, we need to continue looking for the remains. Speaker 1: 06:58 I've been speaking with legal learn deputy director of the ASLU immigrants rights project and Lee, thank you very much. Speaker 2: 07:06 Thank you for having me. [inaudible].