The Trump administration cannot find the parents of 38 migrant children under the age of 5 who were separated from their families at the border, government lawyers admitted in court Friday. Half of the children's parents have already been deported. The other half have been released into the United States, and their whereabouts are now unknown.
U.S. District Judge Dana Sabraw of the Southern District of California, who heard the government's arguments Friday, has imposed a July 10 deadline to reunite 101 young migrant children, including these 38, with their families. Sabraw said the deadline could be extended if the administration provides a list of all 101 children and their parents' status by Saturday afternoon. The list is to be shared with the ACLU.
Also potentially delaying reunifications is the administration's process for verifying parent-child relationships. The government has decided to use DNA testing to bypass sorting through paperwork. DNA tests will be ordered for nearly 3,000 migrant children waiting to be returned to their families.