This Sunday will be the one month anniversary of the court-ordered deadline to reunify children ripped from their parents by the Trump administration. Meanwhile, new data released by the government last night showed that 528 children remain separated, including 23 who are 5 years of age or younger.
Instead of scrambling to fix the catastrophe they created, the Trump administration continues to drag its feet and the pace of reunifications has slowed to a crawl. In fact, as The New Yorker’s Jonathan Blitzer reported this week, far from recoiling from the trauma their policies inflicted on children and families, Stephen Miller and his fellow hardliners are now scheming to devise their next all-out assault on refugees seeking safety in America. In addition to the Blitzer piece, this week delivered new details about how the government coerced parents into signing away their right to reunify and offered the latest in a series of disturbing reminders of how this administration is treating asylum seekers.
According to Frank Sharry, Executive Director of America’s Voice, “Despite being under federal court order to reunify families, we are one month past the deadline, and the government has failed to fully comply and more than 500 children remain separated from their loved ones. The leaders and agents who participated in this travesty are being promoted and celebrated when they should be investigated, held accountable, and perhaps prosecuted. President Trump and his administration, with the willing complicity of a Republican Congress, now are plotting new ways to strip protections from those fleeing violence and seeking protection in America. One of America’s darkest chapters is unresolved. Those families ripped apart are permanently scarred. Those responsible are unbowed and untouched. Those values we once held dear have been sullied.”
