Family Reunification: Tucson Helps With Thousands Still Separated

TUCSON, AZ — Tucson is one of the sites that will assist with the reunification of families separated under the Trump administration’s zero-tolerance immigration policy. The administration said Thursday that all eligible children under 5 have been reunited with their parents, but that nearly half of the youngest children won’t be returned because of safety concerns, the deportation of their parents and other issues.

The administration is under a court order to reunify families separated between early May and June 20, but the heads of three agencies said in a statement that a “tremendous amount of hard work and obstacles” remain in reuniting the remaining families before a court-ordered July 26 deadline.

Tucson is one of those sites where families will be reunited, the Arizona Daily Star reported.

Catholic Charities USA will assist in the reunification of nearly 3,000 minors and their parents who remain separated. (Get Tucson Patch’s real-time news alerts and free morning newsletters. Like us on Facebook. Also, download the free Patch iPhone app or free Patch Android app.)

“Our goal is to do everything we can to assist these families to be treated with dignity,” Sister Donna Markham, the CEO and president of Catholic Charities USA, told the Daily Star. She was in Tucson Thursday as part of her visit to the southwest U.S. border, where the family separations sparked national outrage.

In late June, a federal judge issued a national injunction in the American Civil Liberties Union’s class action lawsuit against the policy and ordered that all children under 5 be returned to their parents by Tuesday, July 10, and the remainder by July 26.

Although some families are back together, ACLU lawyers pointed out the government missed the deadline and they would be deciding how to address the noncompliance with the court.

“If in fact 57 children have been reunited because of the lawsuit, we could not be more happy for those families. But make no mistake about it: The government missed the deadline even for these 57 children,” attorney Lee Gelernt said.

The officials said 46 of the children were not eligible to be reunited with their parents; a dozen parents had already been deported and were being contacted by the administration. Nine were in custody of the U.S. Marshals Service for other offenses. One adult's location was unknown, they said.

Of the deported parents, officials said they had chosen to leave their children behind. One deported father, however, told the Los Angeles Times earlier this week that he didn't realize what he was doing when he signed the paperwork to leave his child behind. It wasn't clear if he was one of the dozen; no names have been made public.

In 22 other cases, adults posed safety concerns, they said. Officials said 11 adults had serious criminal histories including child cruelty, murder or human smuggling. Seven were not determined to be a parent, one had a false birth certificate, one had allegedly abused the child. Another planned to house the child with an adult charged with sexually abusing a child.

"The seriousness of the crimes is the reason why we are not going to reunite them," said Matthew Albence of Immigration and Customs Enforcement, of the 22 cases.

The 46 children will remain in the care of Health and Human Services, which will continue to seek to place them with a sponsor, such as other family members or even foster care, as it does for the more than 10,000 other minors who arrived in the U.S. without a relative.

Part of the problem with reunification, administration officials said, is that the systems weren't set up to bring parents and their children back together.

Health and Human Services manages their care inside the U.S. Homeland Security has control over adults in immigration detention, and the Justice Department manages the immigration courts.

The Associated Press contributed reporting.

Photo by Spencer Platt/Getty Images