Hold federal officials responsible for chaotic family separation policy

ACLU GRAPHIC

ANALYSIS

IT'S OFFICIAL: The Trump administration has failed to meet the July 26 deadline to reunite the families it separated at the border. Hundreds of children are still locked up in detention centers, and the government has deported hundreds of parents without their children.

More than 700 children forcibly removed from their parents at the U.S.-Mexico border still have not been reunited with their families, U.S. officials said today (July 26).

Federal authorities called the remaining children as "ineligible" for reunification, as if it was their fault or the fault of their parents. Most of the parents were deported without their children and the U.S. doesn't have any plan to reunite the parents, who might be in Central America already, with their children, still detained in the U.S.

U.S. District Judge Dana Sabraw, who is overseeing the reunification of some 2,500 immigrant children with their parents has given the Trump administration until Wednesday (August 1) to provide information to locate hundreds of parents, after the federal government failed to meet a July 26 deadline to reunite all families.

The ACLU, meanwhile, claims that dozens of immigrant parents were duped or coerced into waiving their reunification rights. In a 120-page filing submitted last week, attorneys for the civil rights group recounted dozens of stories of parents who were misled into waiving their rights and agreeing to deportation.

Sabraw had earlier ordered all kids under 5 to be reunited with their parents by July 10, and those from ages five to 17 to be reunited by July 26. But the government’s efforts have been marked by chaos; agencies were only able to reunite about half of young children by the first deadline. Forty-six children under age 5 still have not been reunited.

We need to hold the officials responsible for this crisis accountable: Attorney General Jeff Sessions devised the "zero tolerance" immigration policy that created this nightmare, and Kirstjen Nielsen and Kevin McAleenan head the agencies – Homeland Security and Customs and Border Protection – that are doing the dirty work of tearing families apart at the border. And now they're out of time to reunite the families they've torn apart.

This isn't the first time the government missed a court-ordered deadline – they already failed to reunite children under age five with their families. Almost 1,000 children – including many under age five – are still missing their parents. And with reports that hundreds of parents have already been deported, it's tragically unlikely that many of those children will see their parents anytime soon.

Share this graphic to to shame Sessions, Nielsen, and McAleenan for the cruel family separation crisis that they have failed to fix.