There Was No Precedent Or Playbook To Follow: A Look At The Chaos Behind The Family Reunification Process
The Trump administration had worked up to its plan to separate immigrant children at the border, but HHS and DHS had to quickly develop a new one when President Donald Trump abruptly reversed course.
For months, federal immigration officials along the 268-mile stretch of border that separates New Mexico and West Texas from Mexico had been testing a policy of separating migrant parents from their children. What they didn鈥檛 plan for was how to reunite them. When a federal judge ordered the Trump administration to reconnect more than 2,600 children separated from their families after a national outcry, the two government agencies in charge鈥攖he Department of Homeland Security and the Department of Health and Human Services鈥攄idn鈥檛 have a firm grip on the number of children involved or exactly where they were. (Malas and Caldwell, 7/27)
Adayanci Perez Chavez, who was separated from her father when they crossed the border from Guatemala more than two months ago, has watched as one playmate after another has checked out of the migrant children鈥檚 center in Michigan where they have spent their days studying, playing and meeting with their case managers. One by one over the past few weeks, 90 percent of the children at the center, managed by Bethany Christian Services in Kalamazoo, have been put on planes and reunited with parents who had been held at immigration detention centers across the country. (Jordan, 7/27)
A judge ordered independent oversight of U.S. immigration authorities鈥 handling of detained children amid allegations that some were being forcibly medicated at a Texas facility. U.S. District Judge Dolly Gee said at a hearing in Los Angeles Friday that 鈥減ersistent鈥 problems require oversight and she鈥檒l appoint someone in the next two weeks. (Hurtado, 7/27)
The 15-year Honduran immigrant girl鈥 who for three weeks had been held at the Homestead detention center for immigrant minors鈥攈ad just escaped from the care of facility workers who were taking her to a routine doctor鈥檚 appointment Friday morning, Homestead police said. ...The Department of Health of Human Services, the entity that regulates the facilities, in June said that the Homestead detention center was housing about 1,200 immigrant children, including 70 who at the time were separated from their parents at the border. (Madan, 7/29)
