There were tears of joy and tears of anguish as U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) reunited 34 of the 102 children under 5 it had been ordered to return to their parents by Tuesday. (Four other kids had been returned to their parents before Tuesday.) And the federal judge who set the deadline, Dana Sabraw, was not amused. "These are firm deadlines, they're not aspirational goals," he told government lawyers. He asked an ACLU lawyer to propose punishments if the government missed the Tuesday deadline for at least 63 children and the July 26 deadline to reunite parents with the roughly 3,000 older children U.S. border agents forcibly separated under President Trump's "zero tolerance" policy.
The Department of Health and Human Services, which provided the 34-returned-children number, blamed safety concerns for the delay, saying it found parents with criminal backgrounds and five adults who DNA tests showed were not the child's parent. In a court filing Tuesday, the Justice Department gave other extenuating circumstances, including one young child who can't be returned because the whereabouts of his parents are unknown and "records show the parent and child might be U.S. citizens." Judge Sabraw wasn't swayed, conceding only that it would take more time to reunite the 20 children whose parents had already been deported.
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.
-
Did Trump just end the US-Europe alliance?Today's Big Question New US national security policy drops ‘grenade’ on Europe and should serve as ‘the mother of all wake-up calls’
-
How the War Department became the Department of Defense – and back againIn Depth In 1947 President Harry Truman restructured the US military establishment, breaking with naming tradition
-
Sudoku hard: December 8, 2025The daily hard sudoku puzzle from The Week
-
Trump tightens restrictions for work visasSpeed Read The length of work permits for asylum seekers and refugees has been shortened from five years to 18 months
-
Supreme Court revives Texas GOP gerrymanderSpeed Read Texas Republicans can use the congressional map they approved in August at President Donald Trump’s behest
-
Boat strike footage rattles some lawmakersSpeed Read ‘Disturbing’ footage of the Sept. 2 attack on an alleged drug-trafficking boat also shows the second strike that killed two survivors who were clinging to the wreckage
-
Trump boosts gas cars in fuel economy rollbackspeed read Watering down fuel efficiency standards is another blow to former President Biden’s effort to boost electric vehicles
-
Hegseth’s Signal chat put troops in peril, probe findsSpeed Read The defense secretary risked the lives of military personnel and violated Pentagon rules, says new report
-
Trump pardons Texas Democratic congressmanspeed read Rep. Henry Cuellar was charged with accepting foreign bribes tied to Azerbaijan and Mexico
-
GOP wins tight House race in red Tennessee districtSpeed Read Republicans maintained their advantage in the House
-
Trump targets ‘garbage’ Somalis ahead of ICE raidsSpeed Read The Department of Homeland Security will launch an immigration operation targeting Somali immigrants in the Minneapolis-St. Paul area
