The Trump administration is reportedly in chaos trying to figure out how to implement the order reversing family separations


Implementation of President Trump's hastily crafted executive order reversing his administration's policy of separating families at the border reportedly has the executive branch in chaos. "It was policy based on a PR-messaging impulse," light on detail and heavy on speed, a source familiar with administration discussions told Politico.
Trump originally wanted to make comprehensive immigration law by fiat, a Friday night Washington Post story says, but was told by government attorneys that was not possible (or, as one unnamed official put it, "a pretty insane idea"). He then demanded the order on family separation be crafted in less than one day to quell public uproar, a quick solution Politico reports has left the Departments of Homeland Security, Justice, and Defense unsure of how to proceed.
Especially uncertain, says ABC News, is how to reunite families already separated. All migrant children in the care of Customs and Border Protection have been returned to their families, but up to 3,000 are still held by the Department of Health and Human Services, and some have been shipped clear across the country.
Subscribe to The Week
Escape your echo chamber. Get the facts behind the news, plus analysis from multiple perspectives.

Sign up for The Week's Free Newsletters
From our morning news briefing to a weekly Good News Newsletter, get the best of The Week delivered directly to your inbox.
From our morning news briefing to a weekly Good News Newsletter, get the best of The Week delivered directly to your inbox.
"It's devastating because I already know when I meet [clients] for the first time, and they start telling me that they are [a] parent, that I'm not gonna have the answers that they want in any time that they should have," Texas immigration lawyer Erik A. Henshaw told ABC. "I don't know if I'll find them during their case. I don't know if it'll happen when you get to immigration proceedings. I don't know if you're going to be deported or removed and have never actually found and/or had contact with your child."
Sign up for Today's Best Articles in your inbox
A free daily email with the biggest news stories of the day – and the best features from TheWeek.com
Bonnie Kristian was a deputy editor and acting editor-in-chief of TheWeek.com. She is a columnist at Christianity Today and author of Untrustworthy: The Knowledge Crisis Breaking Our Brains, Polluting Our Politics, and Corrupting Christian Community (forthcoming 2022) and A Flexible Faith: Rethinking What It Means to Follow Jesus Today (2018). Her writing has also appeared at Time Magazine, CNN, USA Today, Newsweek, the Los Angeles Times, and The American Conservative, among other outlets.
-
Today's political cartoons - April 20, 2025
Cartoons Sunday's cartoons - Pam Bondi, retirement planning, and more
By The Week US
-
5 heavy-handed cartoons about ICE and deportation
Cartoons Artists take on international students, the Supreme Court, and more
By The Week US
-
Exploring the three great gardens of Japan
The Week Recommends Beautiful gardens are 'the stuff of Japanese landscape legends'
By The Week UK
-
Judge threatens Trump team with criminal contempt
Speed Read James Boasberg attempts to hold the White House accountable for disregarding court orders over El Salvador deportation flights
By Rafi Schwartz, The Week US
-
Biden slams Trump's Social Security cuts
Speed Read In his first major public address since leaving office, Biden criticized the Trump administration's 'damage' and 'destruction'
By Peter Weber, The Week US
-
El Salvador refuses to return US deportee
Speed Read President Nayib Bukele of El Salvador said he would not send back the unlawfully deported Kilmar Ábrego García
By Peter Weber, The Week US
-
Trump says electronics tariff break won't last
Speed Read The tariff exemptions on smartphones, laptops and other electronic devices are temporary, the administration says
By Peter Weber, The Week US
-
Man charged in arson attack on Pennsylvania's Shapiro
Speed Read Governor Josh Shapiro and his family were sleeping when someone set fire to his Harrisburg mansion
By Peter Weber, The Week US
-
White House pushes for oversight of Columbia University
Speed Read The Trump administration is considering placing the school under a consent decree
By Rafi Schwartz, The Week US
-
Supreme Court backs wrongly deported migrant
Speed Read The Trump administration must 'facilitate' the return of wrongfully deported migrant Kilmar Ábrego García from El Salvador, Supreme Court says
By Peter Weber, The Week US
-
Two judges bar war-powers deportations
Speed Read The Trump administration was blocked from using the Alien Enemies Act to deport more alleged Venezuelan gang members
By Peter Weber, The Week US