Years after the United States’ much-contested “family separation” law forcibly separated refugee and migrant children from their families at the southern US border, nearly 1,000 have not been returned.
Officials said Thursday that a team created under the leadership of President Joe Biden has reunited approximately 689 children with their families. Another 2,176 children were reunited with their families before the group was established, thanks in part to lawsuits by groups such as the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU).
However, of the approximately 3,881 children adopted from their families between 2017 and 2021, a total of 998 were separated as of February 1, the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) said Thursday.
But government officials say they believe the number will drop because the group is using government records and non-governmental organizations (NGOs) to find broken families.
“The number of newly identified families is increasing, as families come forward and self-identify,” DHS said in a statement.
Of the 998 children who have not returned to their families, 148 are “in the process of reunification”, the report said. Another 183 families have been “informed about the possibility of reunification” through the NGO.
At a press conference Thursday, DHS Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas recounted his experience with a woman who was separated from her 13-year-old daughter under the program, only to be reunited 16 years later.
Mayorkas said the daughter “still did not understand how her mother could allow her to be separated. She did not understand the force that led to her separation”.
Some families who have been separated by separation policies have been linked to mental health facilities, DHS officials said. But under the Biden administration, the US Department of Justice has said that those affected by the scheme have no right to restitution.
The family separation policy was enacted under former Republican President Donald Trump as part of a crackdown on illegal crossings at the US-Mexico border.
It was one of a number of controversial immigration policies enacted under the Trump administration, including a ban on immigrants from Muslim-majority countries entering the US.
Biden called the separation of the families a “human tragedy” and sharply criticized Trump’s actions on immigration during the presidential campaign. Biden defeated Trump in the 2020 election and began his term in January 2021.
Soon after taking office, Biden reversed several of Trump’s key policies, including what key critics called the “Muslim ban”. In February 2021, Mr. Biden also created the Interagency Task Force on the Reunification of Families to deal with separation policies. Thursday’s numbers mark the team’s second straight year.
However, Mr. Biden has been criticized by immigrant and refugee rights groups and members of his own party for maintaining some of the policies of his predecessor.
One of the most controversial is Title 42, a Trump-era policy that allowed the government to deport asylum seekers in the name of fighting COVID-19.
Immigration rights groups have criticized the policy as violating the rights of asylum seekers, and the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention has called the policy “no longer needed”.
The Biden administration initially tried to end the program but Republican politicians pushed to keep Title 42 in place, pursuing the issue in court. In December, the Supreme Court agreed with the decision and plans to hear arguments on the matter this month.
Under pressure from Republicans, the number of border crossings is increasing, the Biden administration announced plans in January to deport asylum seekers from Cuba, Haiti and Nicaragua who arrived at the border – similar to the policy already implemented for Venezuelans.
Instead, the administration says it accepts more than 30,000 people a month from the four countries through an application process that requires background checks and assistance from the US for each asylum seeker.
While the Biden administration says it is “continuing to prepare for the end of Chapter 42”, critics of the new policy say it amounts to an extension of the Trump program, with its deportations and requirements.
In a press release, the ACLU said Biden’s decision “realigns his administration with the toxic anti-immigrant policies of the Trump era rather than restoring access to protections”.
