The Trump administration has reunited just four of the 102 migrant children age 5 or younger who were supposed to be back with their families by Tuesday, court documents show. Another 50 are expected to be reunified today.
Officials were given the chance to miss the previously imposed Tuesday deadline, with a federal judge requesting a proposed timeline for when each family could be reunited. In the submitted documents explaining the status of the migrant children who were separated from their parents upon arriving in the U.S. under the "zero tolerance" immigration policy, the administration explains that there are a wide range of cases.
The documents show that 26 children have been determined "not eligible for reunification," citing reasons like parents with "serious criminal history" or parents who are being detained in criminal custody. In one case, the government still doesn't know where the child's parent is, writing that "records show the parent and child might be U.S. citizens."
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.
Fifty-one of the 102 cases are classified as "likely eligible for reunification," but the Department of Justice won't make the deadline because the parents are in immigration detention. Another 12 cases won't meet the deadline because the parents were "removed" from the U.S., and the government needs to contact them to "determine whether they wish to have their child reunified with them in their home country."
The judge reportedly agreed with the government's evaluation that children whose parents had criminal convictions wouldn't be subject to Tuesday's deadline, but said he intends to uphold the deadline "on most of the individuals."
-
Nigerian Modernism: an ‘entrancing, enlightening exhibition’The Week Recommends Tate Modern’s ‘revelatory’ show includes 250 works examining Nigerian art pre- and post independence
-
To the point: the gender divide over exclamation marksTalking Point 'Men harbouring urges to be more exclamative' can finally take a breath – this is what using the punctuation really conveys
-
Macbeth: a ‘genuinely scary’ productionThe Week Recommends Daniel Raggett’s nightmarish modern-day staging is set in a boozer in gangland Glasgow
-
Senate votes to kill Trump’s Brazil tariffSpeed Read Five Senate Republicans joined the Democrats in rebuking Trump’s import tax
-
Border Patrol gets scrutiny in court, gains power in ICESpeed Read Half of the new ICE directors are reportedly from DHS’s more aggressive Customs and Border Protection branch
-
Shutdown stalemate nears key pain pointsSpeed Read A federal employee union called for the Democrats to to stand down four weeks into the government standoff
-
Trump vows new tariffs on Canada over Reagan adspeed read The ad that offended the president has Ronald Reagan explaining why import taxes hurt the economy
-
NY attorney general asks public for ICE raid footageSpeed Read Rep. Dan Goldman claims ICE wrongly detained four US citizens in the Canal Street raid and held them for a whole day without charges
-
Trump’s huge ballroom to replace razed East WingSpeed Read The White House’s east wing is being torn down amid ballroom construction
-
Trump expands boat strikes to Pacific, killing 5 moreSpeed Read The US military destroyed two more alleged drug smuggling boats in international waters
-
Trump demands millions from his administrationSpeed Read The president has requested $230 million in compensation from the Justice Department for previous federal investigations
