Despite Court Rulings To Reunite Families, Trump Administration Continues to Keep Them Apart

While the Trump administration failed to meet today’s court-imposed deadline to reunite more than 100 children under five-years-old separated from their parents, a federal judge in California ruled against Trump’s request to  indefinitely detain families at the border. The administration must immediately reunite all families separated as a result of Trump’s manufactured crisis at the border.  Trump’s cruel immigration policies continue to devastate families.

 

See for yourself the cruel effects of Trump’s immigration policy:

 

A migrant mother is suing the Trump administration for mistreating her son while he was in government care, appearing he had not been bathed during the months he was in custody:

Vox: A migrant child was returned to his mother covered in lice, according to a new lawsuit

One of the children separated from his parents at the US-Mexico border was returned months later with lice, looking as if he hadn’t been bathed in weeks, and with irrevocable changes to his personality, his mother said, according to documents filed in a lawsuit against the Trump administration.”

 

The claim was part of a larger suit filed by 17 Democratic attorneys general, which include horrifying testimonials from parents on the treatment of their children:

PBS: ‘My son is not the same’: New testimony paints bleak picture of family separation

“[The children] did not have shoes or blankets in the detention center, and there were people in the cells that had to sleep standing up. They did not have enough to eat either, and could not drink the water, because of the chlorine they added to it … the incarcerated children were insulted – called named such as ‘animals’ and ‘donkeys.’

— Ludin Jimenez said she was separated from her children, age 9 and 17, when she crossed the border in May seeking asylum.”

 

The Trump administration failed to comply with today’s court-imposed deadline to reunite kids with their parents:

Los Angeles Times: Trump administration says it will miss deadline to reunite separated parents and children under 5
“The Trump administration, under court order to reunite children under age 5 with their parents after being forcibly separated at the border, told a judge Monday that it will only be able to reunify just over half of the families by Tuesday’s deadline.”

 

Meanwhile, kids are having to appear in court without their parents and, in many cases, without a lawyer:

Associated Press: Kids as young as 1 in US court, awaiting reunion with family

“Critics have also seized on the nation’s immigration court system that requires children — some still in diapers — to have appearances before judges and go through deportation proceedings while separated from their parents. Such children don’t have a right to a court-appointed attorney, and 90 percent of kids without a lawyer are returned to their home countries, according to Kids in Need of Defense, a group that provides legal representation.”

 

Huffington Post: 1-Year-Old Baby Appears In Immigration Court, Cries Hysterically

“A 1-year-old boy in federal custody who appeared in immigration court without his parents in Phoenix briefly played with a ball, drank from a bottle, then ‘cried hysterically’ as he was about to leave the courtroom Friday, according to The Associated Press.”

 

Pregnant women in ICE detention centers have reported cruel mistreatment:

BuzzFeed: Pregnant Women Said They Miscarried In Immigration Detention And Didn't Get The Care They Needed

“In interviews and written affidavits, E and four other women who’ve been in ICE detention and Customs and Border Protection (CBP) custody while pregnant told of being ignored when they were obviously miscarrying, described their CBP and ICE-contracted jailers as unwilling or unable to respond to medical emergencies, and recounted an incident of physical abuse from CBP officers who knew they were dealing with a pregnant woman. Those descriptions were backed by interviews with five legal aid workers, four medical workers, and two advocates who work with ICE detainees.”

 

The Trump administration is ripping families apart by deporting immigrants who contribute to their communities:

Desert Sun: A Hemet mother of 9 was deported with 6 kids, leaving the remaining 3 with an uncertain future

“Isabela called Cecilia later that day. Over the phone, Isabela told her daughter she had been deported to Tijuana with six of the nine kids, five of whom were United States citizens. Suddenly, it was up to Cecilia, who is undocumented, to care for her 14-year-old brother, who is also undocumented, and her 11-year-old sister, a U.S. citizen who has Down Syndrome.”

 

NBC 4: Immigrant NYC Grandparents Detained While Visiting Son-in-Law at Fort Drum, Family Says

“A Mexican family from Brooklyn says they were headed upstate to Fort Drum to celebrate Independence Day with an Army sergeant family member when border patrol agents questioned their parents' New York City IDs, and then took them to a detention facility hundreds of miles away.”

 

The government is also seeking to “denaturalize” immigrants who have already become citizens:

Miami Herald: Miami grandma targeted as U.S. takes aim at naturalized immigrants with prior offenses

“The United States government has long reserved its power to revoke citizenship for the rarest of cases, going after the likes of war criminals, child rapists and terrorist funders.Norma Borgono is none of those. The 63-year-old secretary who immigrated from Peru in 1989 volunteers weekly at church, raised two children on a $500-a-week salary and suffers from a rare kidney disorder. But a week after her baby granddaughter came home from the hospital, Borgono received a letter from the U.S. government: The Department of Justice was suing to ‘denaturalize’ her as part of an unprecedented push by the Trump administration to revoke citizenship from people who committed criminal offenses before they became citizens.”