Judge: Administration responsible for reuniting families

SAN DIEGO — A federal judge Friday said President Donald Trump’s administration was solely responsible for reuniting hundreds of children who remain separated from their parents after being split up at the U.S.-Mexico border, puncturing a government plan that put the onus on the American Civil Liberties Union.

“The reality is that for every parent that is not located, there will be a permanently orphaned child, and that is 100 percent the responsibility of the administration,” U.S. District Judge Dana Sabraw said.

His remarks in a conference call came a day after the administration and the ACLU submitted widely divergent plans on how to reunify more than 500 still-separated children, including 410 with parents outside the United States.

Justice Department lawyers proposed Thursday in a court filing to shift responsibility away from the government and transfer to the ACLU the role of finding out whether parents want their children back and locating parents who are no longer in the United States.

“Plaintiffs’ counsel should use their considerable resources and their network of law firms, [non-government organizations], volunteers, and others,” the government lawyers wrote, offering to give the ACLU additional information that might help the organization locate the parents.

But the ACLU said the group and its allies “have made clear that they will do whatever they can to help locate the deported parents, but emphasize that the government must bear the ultimate burden of finding the parents.”

“Not only was it the government’s unconstitutional separation practice that led to this crisis,” the ACLU wrote, “but the United States government has far more resources” than nonprofits or outside law firms.

Sabraw said he was disappointed with the court filing “in the respect that there’s not a plan that has been proposed.” He said he would order the government to name someone to lead the effort.

“This is going to be a significant undertaking, and it’s clear that there has to be one person in charge,” he said.

Left unresolved Friday was a temporary halt on deporting reunified families that Sabraw imposed on July 16 to allow time to address another dispute. The ACLU has asked that families have at least a week to decide if they want to seek asylum after they are reunited with their children, a step that the administration opposes.

Sabraw said he wanted to wait to see how a federal judge in Washington, D.C., rules on a lawsuit that also seeks a temporary halt on deportations. If that judge transfers the case to San Diego, Sabraw said he planned to convene a hearing next week for oral arguments.

In late June, Sabraw ordered that more than 2,500 children rejoin their parents by July 26. Hundreds still remain apart, however, mainly because many of those parents are outside the country.

The number of migrant parents who have signed away the right to be reunited with their children is significantly fewer than the Trump administration has said before, according to new government information.

The latest figures show that 34 parents waived the chance to be back together with their children — compared with the 120 that the government reported a week earlier. Migrants’ advocates and congressional Democrats have challenged the idea that large numbers of parents were signing away those rights, contending that some individuals — traumatized by being in custody or having had their children taken away — were misled, did not understand the form they signed or never signed in the first place.

The data, filed in federal court late Thursday, shows a modest increase in the number of youngsters returned to their parents after being separated at the southern U.S. border.

Of 2,551 children ages 5-17 who were separated from their parents, 1,979 have been released from shelters overseen by the Department of Health and Human Services’ refugee office — nearly 160 more than a week earlier. Most were reunited with their parents, though some were placed with other relatives or other responsible adults, or had turned 18 themselves.

Hundreds of the reunified families remain in custody in family detention centers run by Immigration and Customs Enforcement, while hundreds more have been released to await immigration proceedings.

The number of children with parents whose whereabouts are unknown to the government declined sharply in the past week — from 94 to 15, according to the data, which covered through midday Wednesday.

The court filing does not explain why the number of parents waiving the right to be reunited has plummeted. Health and Human Services officials have said they are continuing to ask parents in immigration custody whether they want their children back and that, if any change their minds, they are being reunited.

At a hearing this week before the Senate Judiciary Committee, Matthew Albence, a senior Immigration and Customs Enforcement official, repeatedly sidestepped questions about whether every parent who had left the country without a child had signed a waiver.

“Is there documentation for what you claim?” asked Sen. Richard Durbin, D-Ill.

“Right now, the form that we’re utilizing … is an ACLU-developed form, approved by the court,” Albence replied.

“I know you can get to a yes or no,” Durbin countered, “and that’s what I’m looking for.”

Albence repeated his answer.

Cmdr. Jonathan White, the public health official who has led the reunification effort for Health and Human Services, told the senators that, while signing away reunification rights may be difficult to fathom, “many parents have made this journey to deliver their children here because that is the desperate, last act of a parent trying to take the child out of some of the most dangerous places to raise a child in the world.”

Information for this article was contributed by Elliot Spagat of The Associated Press and Amy Goldstein of The Washington Post.