NewsHero (beta) - ACLU Work reveals 1,556 Children Separated From Families
October 26, 2019 - Issue 3
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ACLU Work Reveals 1,556 Children Separated From Families
New count shows more than 5,400 total families split under Trump administration
Protest in front of Federal Courthouse in Los Angeles, June 26, 2018. Richard Vogel/Associated Press
The American Civil Liberties Union said Thursday that U.S. immigration authorities separated more than 1,500 children from their parents at the Mexico border early in the Trump administration, bringing the total number of children separated since July 2017 to more than 5,400.
Judge Dana Sabraw U.S. District of Southern California ordered the administration in June 2018 to halt the controversial practice of forcibly separating detained migrant parents from their children. The ACLU said the administration told its attorneys that 1,556 children were separated from July 1, 2017, to June 26, 2018.
The Justice Department declined to comment.
They can be difficult to find, but volunteers working with the ACLU are searching for some of the children and their parents from that period by going door to door in Guatemala and Honduras. Of those separated during the twelve-month period, 207 were younger than five, said attorney Lee Gelernt of the ACLU, which sued to stop family separation.
"It is shocking that 1,556 more families, including babies and toddlers, join the thousands of others already torn apart by this inhumane and illegal policy," said Gelernt. "Families have suffered tremendously, and some may never recover.”
In related news, the Justice Department is proposing to begin collecting DNA samples from hundreds of thousands of immigrants crossing the border, creating a massive database that officials say will be used to help authorities fight crime.
Immigrant advocates have denounced the proposal, arguing that genetic information from those crossing the border could have implications for family members living in the U.S.
“It's the most intimate information that you can take from someone. It is information you can use to find their family members, to know their histories,” Naureen Shah, senior advocacy and policy counsel at the American Civil Liberties Union, told NPR. “And we're going to be taking it from people against their will.”
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