A federal court filing from the Justice Department and the American Civil Liberties Union shows that attorneys working to reach the migrant families separated at the US-Mexico by the Trump administration are still trying to identify and reach the parents of 391 migrant children, CNN reports.
The filing is part of an ongoing effort to identify and reunite families three years after the so-called zero tolerance policy went into effect in 2018, separating at least 1,800 children from their parents, according to government data.
According to a status report filed Wednesday by the ACLU, which sued the federal government over separations in 2018, he number of migrant kids whose parents still haven’t been tracked down fell to 391 this week.
Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas said at the time that the first families reuniting this week are mothers and children who were 3 years old at the time of separation, teenagers who have had to live without their parent during their most formative years.
Issuing executive order, President Biden set up a task force of federal agencies, housed in the Department of Homeland Security, to identify and reunite families separated at the US-Mexico border under the Trump administration.
According to Ann Garcia, attorney who’s been working on assisting separated families with legal and social needs, the task force has been engaging with lawyers and groups who are in touch with families.
In line with the efforts, DHS established a process for accepting parole requests, the Department of Health and Human Services is facilitating services to support families and the State Department has developed a streamlined system for processing in-country travel document requests.
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