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The American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) said that the Trump administration, under court order, has provided the group with a list of 102 separated migrant children under five years old who must be reunited with their parents by Tuesday, July 10. But according to the group, “the administration appears likely to fail to reunite even half by deadline.”
“The Justice Department asked U.S. District Judge Dana Sabraw for more time last week but the judge on Friday did not grant a blanket extension,” the Associated Press reported, “saying only that he would consider certain exceptions.”
Under the judge’s order—the George W. Bush appointee said these “‘chaotic circumstances’ were of the government’s own making”—the administration must reunite kids under five by tomorrow, and all kids by July 26. But there’s no indication that the administration met the judge’s July 6 deadline requiring all separated kids be able to communicate with their parents. The administration can’t even say for sure how many kids have been kidnapped from parents in the first place.
”Health and Human Services Secretary Alex Azar said Thursday there were ‘under 3,000’ children separated from their parents. Previously, he said 2,047,” according to the AP. On Monday, “a senior HHS official could not answer [Congress member Pramila] Jayapal‘s question about the number of separated children whose parents cannot yet be identified by the US government,” CNN reported.
“It’s extremely disappointing,” said ACLU attorney Lee Gelernt, “that the Trump administration looks like it will fail to reunite even half the children under 5 with their parent. These kids have already suffered so much because of this policy, and every extra day apart just adds to that pain.”
Pain that must be accounted for. This must be repeated like a broken record: the administration kidnapped kids with no plan set in place on how to reunite them, or to even reunite them at all. This is criminal, even aside from the administration most likely failing to fully comply with a court order when it comes to the first two deadlines. There should be resignations over this, at the very least, and starting from the very top.