Wednesday, June 27, 2018

Federal Judge Orders Migrant Families be Reunited

JUDGE ORDERS MIGRANT FAMILIES REUNITED: "A federal judge has ordered the federal government to reunite migrant parents with children taken from them under the Trump administration's family separation policy," Josh Gerstein reported late Tuesday for POLITICO.
"San Diego-based U.S. District Court Judge Dana Sabraw issued a preliminary injunction Tuesday night requiring that nearly all children under five be returned to their parents within 14 days and that older children be returned within 30 days.," Gerstein writes. "'The unfortunate reality is that under the present system migrant children are not accounted for with the same efficiency and accuracy as property. Certainly, that cannot satisfy the requirements of due process,' Sabraw wrote in his order." More here. Read the injunction here.
The ruling followed a statement earlier Tuesday by Health and Human Services Secretary Alex Azar that the Trump administration would not reunite migrant children with any parents held in immigration detention. Azar's declaration, made at a congressional hearing on an unrelated topic, "confirmed what immigrant advocates have feared," reported Jazmine Ulloa reports in the Los Angeles Times. "The administration will reunite children with their parents quickly only if the parents drop their claims for asylum in the U.S. and agree to be deported." 
"Under administration policy," Ulloa wrote, "immigrants claiming asylum are held in detention awaiting a hearing — a process that can often take months or years. Because current law allows children to be held in immigrant detention facilities for no more than 20 days, Azar's agency would not place any of the children with parents who are in those facilities, he said. 'If the parent remains in detention, unfortunately, under rules that are set by Congress and the courts, they can't be reunified while they're in detention,' Azar said." It wasn't clear last night how or whether Judge Sabraw's ruling would affect the newly-declared HHS policy. More here
Congress, meanwhile, struggled to address the issue. "Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) on Tuesday urged bipartisan negotiators to reach a deal this week to fix the Trump administration's slapdash policy on migrant family separations — but he's poised to be disappointed," POLITICO's Elana Schor and Nolan D. McCaskill report. "Immigration talks that began this week are only in their early stages, according to senators in both parties. Sens. Ted Cruz (R-Texas), Dianne Feinstein (D-Calif.), Thom Tillis (R-N.C.) and Dick Durbin (D-Ill.) met on Monday, and their efforts are likely to stretch into next month given that lawmakers are scheduled to leave Washington next week for their Fourth of July recess."
McConnell told reporters he hoped the "unusual couple" of Cruz and Feinstein would be able to reach a solution that could pass the Senate on a voice vote. "That's what I'd like to see, and I think we have a pretty diverse group of people working together to try to get an outcome," he said. But big gaps remain to be bridged between Republican and Democratic lawmakers proposals, including what to do about the 1997 Flores settlement, which prevents children from being detained longer than 20 days. More here
Then there's this: "The pace of arrests on the U.S.-Mexico border dropped in June, according to a preliminary government estimate — potentially signaling that the Trump administration's controversial 'zero tolerance' policy discouraged migrants from traveling north," POLITICO's Ted Hesson reports. "U.S. Customs and Border Protection is projected to arrest roughly 37,000 people at the border in June, based on arrest data from June 1-16, a DHS official told POLITICO."

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