1,000 New Cases of Family Separation Revealed Since Trump Declared Separations Were Over
Yesterday brought home more disturbing reminders that the Trump Administration’s horrific family separations policy continues to this day. By exploiting the “best interests of the child” provisions in the child separation litigation settlement and using the “Remain in Mexico program,” the Trump Administration keeps separating families. As the Washington Post’s Maria Sacchetti writes:
Lawyers for the American Civil Liberties Union told a federal judge Tuesday that the Trump administration has taken nearly 1,000 migrant children from their parents at the U.S.-Mexico border since the judge ordered the United States government to curtail the practice more than a year ago.
In a lengthy court filing in U.S. District Court in San Diego, lawyers wrote that one migrant lost his daughter because a U.S. Border Patrol agent claimed that he had failed to change the girl’s diaper. Another migrant lost his child because of a conviction on a charge of malicious destruction of property with alleged damage of $5. One father, who lawyers say has a speech impediment, was separated from his 4-year-old son because he could not clearly answer Customs and Border Protection agents’ questions.
According to Frank Sharry, Executive Director of America’s Voice, “It is a moral stain on America that the Trump administration has continued ripping apart hundreds of children from their families. As the latest news drives home in horrific detail, family separation is not just a dark chapter of recent American history that has been resolved. It’s a barbaric practice inflicting entirely predictable and avoidable trauma on children and families and one that the Trump Administration continues to pursue to the collective shame of all of us. Family separation needs to stop – now – and its architects and enablers need to be held to account for their actions.”
