Campaign Action
Tuesday, Sept. 25, marks 61 days since a federal judge’s order to reunite migrant families, yet 182 migrant children continue to remain separated from their parents, including six kids age 5 and under. Having torn families apart with no plan set in place on how to reunite them, a recent court filing shows officials continue to mangle the process of piecing back together the children and parents they split up.
“In the past week,” the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) said, “parents have not been informed of changes in travel plans for their child and have traveled great distances only to have their child not arrive.” In other instances, “parents have not been given sufficient advance notice of an arriving child and the child has had to wait overnight, or for several days, for the parent to arrive at the reunification site.”
One child, 6-year-old Marianita, was finally reunited with her family last week after more than three months of separation. Her advocates said officials slow-walked the girl’s reunification with her family, finally speeding up the process after her case received media attention. “The federal government is very bureaucratic and they are not in a rush to reunite any of these families,” said Efrén Olivares of the Texas Civil Rights Project. “They are only doing the bare minimum which the court is forcing them to do. They are dragging their feet on purpose because it does not benefit them politically to reunite these families.”
The barbaric “zero tolerance” policy is a humanitarian disaster created by Donald Trump and his officials, yet not one of them has been jailed for violating a judge’s order, has been fired, or has been forced to resign. The Republican-led Congress has the power to investigate these abuses and haul in officials for questioning, yet it has abdicated its duty. These complicit legislators need to get the hell out. Free the children, and lock up the officials who continue to violate a court order.