Trump Team Defied Judge, Separated 911 Kids From Families, ACLU Says
Trump Border Team Accused of Defying Judge With Family Splits
(Bloomberg) -- The Trump administration is defying a judge’s order by continuing to split up families of migrants seeking asylum in the U.S., the American Civil Liberties Union said in a request to block the practice.
“The government is systematically separating large numbers of families based on minor criminal history, highly dubious allegations of unfitness, and errors in identifying bona fide parent-child relationships,” the ACLU said in a filing Tuesday in San Diego federal court.
More than 900 children, including babies and toddlers, have been separated from their parents in the past year over the “most minor” of infractions, such as traffic violations, the organization said.
The administration has repeatedly run afoul of the courts as it tries to crack down on undocumented immigrants from Central America. Earlier this month, the Department of Homeland Security announced a new rule that would bar Central Americans from applying for asylum at the Mexican border if they hadn’t done so in another country they traveled though on their way to the U.S.
Representatives of U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement declined to comment on the new allegations by the ACLU.
U.S. District Judge Dana Sabraw last year ordered the administration to reunite thousands of children who had been separated from their families as part of a “zero tolerance” policy against undocumented immigrants from Central America. The order followed a public outcry over the policy.
The families were separated because the U.S. can lock up adults in ICE facilities, but it’s prevented under a long-standing, court-enforced agreement from holding children in those detention centers for more than 20 days.
The judge also ordered the administration to stop separating families at the border except if the parents have a criminal history. The judge left it to the U.S. to determine whether an immigrant’s criminal history made them unfit or presented a danger to their children but said some types of criminal history might not justify detaining a parent separately.
Among the examples of purported minor and nonviolent criminal violations the U.S. used to split up families are driving under the influence, marijuana possession and destruction of $5 worth of property. One parent was separated for a 27-year-old drug-possession conviction, according to the ACLU.
The administration also separated families because of unjustified doubts whether they were actually related, the ACLU said.
One three-year-old girl was taken from her father because immigration officials didn’t believe he was her parent and refused a requested DNA test, according to the ACLU. After lawyers interfered, the family took a paternity test that showed he was her father. Meanwhile, the girl was sexually abused while in the care of the Office of Refugee Resettlement and appears to be severely regressing in development, the ACLU said.
The case is Ms. L. v. U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement, 18-cv-00428, U.S. District Court, Southern District of California (San Diego).
To contact the reporter on this story: Edvard Pettersson in Los Angeles at epettersson@bloomberg.net
To contact the editors responsible for this story: David Glovin at dglovin@bloomberg.net, Joe Schneider, Peter Blumberg
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