How The Trump Administration Continues To Separate Children From Their Parents To Serve Its Political Ends
EXECUTIVE SUMMARY
The Trump administration continues to separate families, taking children from parents, placing parents in adult immigration detention and children in shelters across the country. During the administration’s Zero Tolerance policy, the government separated nearly 4,500 children from their parents. Its stated motive: to deter families from seeking protection in the United States.
Since the end of this policy, another 1,100 children have been separated from their parents based on alleged criminal histories, which frequently have no bearing on a parent’s ability to care for a child. The Young Center for Immigrant Children’s Rights was appointed to a two-year-old who was separated from a parent after Zero Tolerance ended because immigration officials observed that the child had a diaper rash. In another case, a six-year-old was separated from a parent who had a charge of “breaching the peace” on his record. Teenagers and babies alike were taken from parents with years-old charges for driving under the influence. After spending months in federal custody, all these children were reunited with their parents for the purpose of joint repatriation (deportation).
Today, under the pretense of protecting public health, the border is closed and nearly no children are allowed in. Some families continue to wait in the Remain in Mexico program, which the government ironically calls the Migrant Protection Protocols. The program forces families seeking protection at the U.S. border to wait in Mexico for decisions on their immigration proceedings. Since the policy began in January 2019, nearly 60,000 people have been trapped in appalling conditions at the border. Others–including unaccompanied children–have been put on ICE flights and deported, in violation of federal law.
Separation from parents can cause severe, lifelong harm to children. In this report, we seek to galvanize renewed attention to the problem of family separation at the border and offer concrete recommendations to end these practices. We will also share how the Young Center employs its unique model of assigning independent Child Advocates—volunteers, attorneys, social workers, and paralegals—who work to reunify separated children with their families as quickly as possible and ensure that unaccompanied children can live with family in the community as their immigration cases proceed.