Nearly three months after the Trump administration missed the deadlines to reunite the nearly
3,000 migrant children who were ripped from their families at the border last April, 245 children
are still in U.S. custody — the majority of whom will not rejoin their parents.
On Monday evening, the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) filed court documents as part
of its class-action lawsuit over family separations, from which these numbers were pulled. Of the
245 separated minors, 175 have parents who were deported; of those 175, there are 125 whose
parents don’t want their children to reunite with them in their countries of origin, many of which
have high rates of violence. Only 18 children are expected to rejoin their parents in their home
countries.
There are also 32 children in custody whose fates have not yet been determined, and 26 whose
parents are ineligible for reunification. According to a recent AP investigation, some migrant
children may be put up for adoption in the U.S. without their families ever knowing.
The ACLU’s class-action case, which will have its next status hearing on Tuesday, calls for the
immediate reunification of all separated migrant families under the Trump administration’s
inhumane “zero tolerance” immigration policy. Though Trump signed an executive order ending
his own “Zero Tolerance” policy after a huge public outcry, he has also implemented a new
policy that detains entire families together.
To this day, he defends the practice, and is actively considering a new family-separation effort.