When Did Immigration Service Start Separating Children From Parents

Why are children being separated from their families?

In Apr, the U.s.a. attorney general, Jeff Sessions, appear a "zero-tolerance" policy, stating "our goal is to prosecute every case that is brought to us". Under the Trump administration'due south new enforcement policy, every migrant who crosses the border illegally – even those seeking asylum in the US – is subject to criminal prosecution.

Since children are not allowed to be held in a federal jail, they are taken from their parents and placed in the intendance of the Office of Refugee Resettlement (ORR).

Almost 2,000 children have been separated from their families at the United states of america southern border over a six-week period during a crackdown on illegal entries, according to the Department of Homeland Security.

A DHS spokesman told reporters terminal week that 1,995 minors were separated from one,940 adults between 19 April and 31 May 2018. Immigrant advocacy groups, however, say hundreds more take been separated since at least July 2017.

What happens to the children?

Later beingness separated from their parents, the children – some as young as 18 months – are and then treated as "unaccompanied conflicting children", a category which exists primarily to serve children who voluntarily get in at the edge on their ain.

Unaccompanied alien children are placed in the custody of ORR inside 72 hours of being apprehended by border agents. They so wait, in government-run facilities, for weeks or months while agency officials search for relatives or sponsors to treat the child while their clearing example is pending.

Reporters who have toured the facilities where families are separated by border patrol officers describe hundreds of children waiting in cages with concrete floors, kept away from their families. One clearing advocate told the Associated Press that a teenager helped intendance for a immature child she didn't know considering the kid'southward aunt was somewhere else in the facility. The teen said she had to prove others in her cell how to alter the girl'south diaper.

Separated migrant families held in cages at Texas border – video

In the shelters, children are offered toys and books. But Colleen Kraft, the president, American Academy of Pediatrics, who toured a shelter in a border town in Texas, described children in distress.

"Separating children from their parents contradicts everything we stand for as pediatricians – protecting and promoting children's health," she wrote afterward her visit. "In fact, highly stressful experiences, like family separation, tin crusade irreparable damage, disrupting a child's brain compages and affecting his or her brusque and long-term wellness."

The system is already overburdened, dating back to 2014 when tens of thousands of Central American "unaccompanied minors" fleeing violence and poverty in their home countries arrived at the Texas border.

Mothers and children wait to be assisted by volunteers at a humanitarian center in the border town of McAllen, Texas on Friday. — Mothers and children await to exist assisted by volunteers at a humanitarian heart in the border town of McAllen, Texas on Fri. Photograph: Leila Macor/AFP/Getty Images

Can these children be reunited with their parents?

Immigration advocacy groups and attorneys take warned that at that place is non a articulate system in place to reunite families. In one case, attorneys in Texas said they had been given a phone number to aid parents locate their children, only it was actually the number for an immigration enforcement tip line.

Advocates for children accept said they do not know how to find parents, who are more than likely to have important data about why the family is fleeing its domicile country. And if, for instance, a parent is deported, at that place is no clear style for them to ensure their child is deported with them.

What happened to families before?

When an influx of families and unaccompanied children from Central America arrived at the border in 2014, Barack Obama's administration detained families.

This was harshly criticized and a federal court in 2015 stopped the authorities from holding families for months without caption. Instead, they were released while they waited for their immigration cases to be heard in court. Not everyone shows up for those court dates, leading the Trump administration to condemn what it calls a "catch and release" program.

US immigration protests as hundreds of children held in Texas facility – video

Volition the Trump administration alter its policy?

Donald Trump has repeatedly and falsely blamed the widely condemned practice on Democrats – even though officials in his administration accept publicly advocated for it.

Sessions, the attorney general, has argued that family separation is necessary to deter migrants from trying to cross the edge illegally. John Kelly, Trump's chief of staff, defended the exercise in an interview, arguing that the "proper noun of the game is deterrence".

In a rare argument on policy, Melania Trump said she "hates to encounter children separated from their families". But she too blamed "both sides" for the current situation, echoing her husband's inaccurate claim that Democrats are responsible for her husband'south policy.

The administration is facing increasing force per unit area from prominent lawmakers in both parties besides as homo rights groups, religions leaders and immigration advocates to halt the practice of separating families.

In a scathing op-ed in the Washington Post, Laura Bush-league, the wife of old president George W Bush, wrote that the zero-tolerance policy was "vicious" and "immoral".

"These images are eerily reminiscent of the Japanese American internment camps of World War 2, at present considered to accept been one of the most shameful episodes in US history," she wrote.

Republican lawmakers say they want to accost the practise of family separation in a wider immigration neb only its prospects of passing are unlikely.

Homeland secretary defends clearing policy on separating children – video