Trump administration family separation policy

Separated family members detained in cages

Detained children

Photos provided by Custom and Border Protection to reporter on tour of Ursala detention facility in McAllen, Texas. Reporters were not allowed to take their own photos.

File:Directions to find kids.jpg

Department of Homeland Security handout given to parents whose children are detained

The Trump administration family separation policy is an aspect of the immigration policy of U.S. President Donald Trump, begun in 2018, that involves prosecuting all adults, including those applying for asylum, who are apprehended illegally crossing the U.S.–Mexico border. Under the policy, termed "zero tolerance", federal authorities separate children from their parents, relatives, or other adults who accompanied them in crossing the border: the parents are sent to federal jails while children and infants are placed under the supervision of the Department of Health and Human Services.

According to the Department of Homeland Security, the policy led to the separation of around 2,000 children from their parents in its first six weeks, though others said the figure may have been much higher. In April and May 2018, an average of 45 children were taken from their parents per day, with a total of 30,000 children expected to be detained by August 2018. According to internal documents of the Border Patrol, 91% of the parents whose children had been forcibly taken away were being charged only with a misdemeanor.

In June, U.S. Representative Pramila Jayapal spoke with woman detainees at the Federal Detention Center, SeaTac, facility. She said that many of the women spoke of "fleeing threats of rape, gang violence and political persecution". More than half of the women were mothers who had forcibly been separated from their children, some as young as 12 months old and many did not know where their children were being detained. Jayapal reported, "Some of them heard their children screaming for them in the next room. Not a single one of them had been allowed to say goodbye or explain to them what was happening."

The policy has attracted significant criticism and protest since its public announcement by Attorney General Jeff Sessions on May 7, 2018. In June, dozens of protest demonstrations were held, attracting thousands. In Washington, Democratic members of Congress marched with others in protest. Many religious groups also oppose the policy including the US Conference of Catholic Bishops, the National Association of Evangelicals, The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints and the Southern Baptist Convention, a conservative evangelical denomination and the largest Protestant church in America. It has also been condemned by the American Academy of Pediatrics, the American College of Physicians and the American Psychiatric Association. The Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights called for the Trump administration to “immediately halt” its policy of separating children from their parents and human rights activists have criticized that the policy, applied to asylum seekers, is contrary to Article 31 of the Refugee Convention.

A poll released by CNN on June 18, 2018, found that two-thirds of Americans oppose the policy, with 92% of Democrats opposed and 58% of Republicans approving. A Quinnipiac University poll of American voters released the same day found very similar results.

History

Bush administration

President George W. Bush began the trend of a "zero tolerance" approach in 2005 with Operation Streamline, but during his administration exceptions were generally made for families.

Obama administration

To ensure that parental rights were not being violated due to detention or deportation, President Barack Obama made changes to immigration policy, releasing parents and focusing on deportation of immigrants who committed crimes in the U.S. When President Trump began separating families, pro-Trump pundits argued that the administration was implementing the same policy as the Obama administration. PolitiFact found that the assertion that Trump was implementing the same policy as Obama to be "false", noting "Obama’s immigration policy specifically sought to avoid breaking up families. While some children were separated from their parents under Obama, this was relatively rare and families were quickly reunited even if that meant the release of a parent from detention."

In July 2016, the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals ruled that detained immigrant children should be released as quickly as possible but that parents were not required to be freed. The administration complied by releasing women and children after they have been held together for 21 days.

2017

Two weeks after President Trump was inaugurated, the administration was reviewing the idea of separating immigrant children from their mothers as a way to deter asylum-seekers. In January 2017 the American Immigration Council and five other advocacy organizations filed a complaint with the Department of Homeland Security’s Office for Civil Rights and Civil Liberties protesting the “systemic denial of entry to asylum seekers.” According to advocacy lawyers, asylum seekers presenting at border crossings were being told a variety of reasons for refusal such as "the daily quota has been reached", that they needed to present a visa, or that they needed to schedule an appointment through Mexican authorities, none of which are accurate. One nonprofit organization spokesperson commented, “We’ve basically arrived at a place where applying for asylum is not available to most people.”

In March 2017, it was first reported that the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) was considering a proposal to separate parents from their children if they were caught attempting to cross the border into the United States. John Kelly, then Secretary of Homeland Security, confirmed that the policy was under consideration, but later denied it. Speaking on Democracy Now! the director of the National Immigration Law Center said that the policy, if implemented, would amount "to state-sanctioned violence against children, against families that are coming to the United States to seek safety" and that the administration did not act with transparency in explaining what was being proposed.

The American Academy of Pediatrics (AAP) issued a statement to address media reports of the plan:

Federal authorities must exercise caution to ensure that the emotional and physical stress children experience as they seek refuge in the United States is not exacerbated by the additional trauma of being separated from their siblings, parents or other relatives and caregivers. Proposals to separate children from their families as a tool of law enforcement to deter immigration are harsh and counterproductive. We urge policymakers to always be mindful that these are vulnerable, scared children.

The AAP offered to assist Homeland Security in "crafting immigration procedures that protect children.”

The Young Center for Immigrant Children's Rights at the University of Chicago Law School reported that, "As early as late spring of 2017 … we have seen a significant number of children referred to us for the appointment of a child advocate for kids taken from their parents at the border." The ACLU filed a class-action lawsuit against the Trump administration charging that the administration was illegally separating children from their parents while the parents awaited asylum proceedings.

In April, the DHS said they were no longer considering the policy partly due to the steep decline in mothers attempting to travel to the U.S. with their children. Then, also in April, Attorney General Jeff Sessions ordered an escalation of federal prosecutions. Within five months, hundreds of children were reported to have been separated from their parents. In June, the Trump administration said it was ending the Family Case Management Program, which kept asylum-seeking mothers and their children out of detention. By December, after a new surge in families crossing the southern border, the DHS was again considering the policy to separate children from parents.

2018

On April 6, 2018, Attorney General Jeff Sessions directed federal prosecutors "to adopt immediately a zero-tolerance policy for all offenses" related to the misdemeanor of improper entry into the United States, and that this "zero-tolerance policy shall supersede any existing policies". This would aim to criminally convict first-time offenders when historically they would face civil and administrative removal, while criminal convictions were usually reserved for those who committed the felony of illegal re-entry after removal.

In late April 2018, the media reported that a review of government data found that about 700 migrant children, more than 100 of them under the age of 4, had been taken from their parents since October 2017. At that time Department of Homeland Security officials said they did not split families to deter immigration but rather to "protect the best interests of minor children crossing our borders."

On May 7, 2018, Attorney General Jeff Sessions announced:

If you cross the border unlawfully ... then we will prosecute you. If you smuggle an illegal alien across the border, then we’ll prosecute you. ... If you’re smuggling a child, then we’re going to prosecute you, and that child will be separated from you, probably, as required by law.

Multiple media accounts, as well as direct testimony from detained migrants to members of Congress, report that immigrant families presenting themselves at ports of entry seeking asylum have also been separated. Speaking on Face the Nation on June 17, Senator Susan Collins said that the Secretary of Homeland Security Kirstjen Nielsen had testified before the Senate that asylum seekers with families would not be separated if they presented themselves at a legal port of entry. Collins added, "Yet, there are numerous credible media accounts showing that exactly that is happening, and the administration needs to put an end to that right off." Later in the day Nielsen tweeted: "We do not have a policy of separating families at the border. Period."

Motivation

In February 2017, ICE asylum chief John Lafferty told DHS employees that the Trump administration was "in the process of reviewing" several policies aimed at lowering the number of asylum seekers to the United States, which included the idea of separating migrant mothers and children.

Speaking on NPR in May 2018, White House Chief of Staff John F. Kelly described the policy as "a tough deterrent [and] a much faster turnaround on asylum seekers". When questioned if it might be considered "cruel and heartless" to remove children from their mothers, Kelly replied, "I wouldn't put it quite that way. The children will be taken care of—put into foster care or whatever."

In June 2018, Attorney General Sessions said, "If people don’t want to be separated from their children, they should not bring them with them. We've got to get this message out. You're not given immunity." White House senior policy adviser Stephen Miller said: "It was a simple decision by the administration to have a zero tolerance policy for illegal entry, period. The message is that no one is exempt from immigration law."

The Washington Post quoted a White House official as saying that Trump's decision to enforce the current immigration law is to "force people to the table" to negotiate on laws in Congress. Meanwhile, Trump tweeted: "Any Immigration Bill MUST HAVE full funding for the Wall, end Catch & Release, Visa Lottery and Chain, and go to Merit Based Immigration." [sic]

Impact

In the past, most migrants illegally crossing the border came almost entirely from Mexico, however current influx now includes greater numbers of women and children fleeing violence, gang recruitment, and sexual trafficking in the Central American countries of El Salvador, Guatemala, and Honduras. Rather than illegally crossing into the US, they are presenting themselves at the border hoping to claim asylum, which they are legally entitled to do.

The number of immigrant children in custody surged following the implementation of the policy. The Department of Health and Human Services reported on May 29 "that it had 10,773 migrant children in its custody, up from 8,886 on April 29."According to Congressional testimony given by an official for U.S. Customs and Border Protection, "638 adults were referred for prosecution between May 6 and May 19 under the new zero-tolerance effort and they brought 658 children with them." According to figures released by the Department of Homeland Security, during six weeks in April and May 1,995 immigrant children were separated from parents. This figure does not include children of families that asked for asylum at an official border crossing and were then separated. Speaking on Face the Nation on June 17, Senator Susan Collins suggested that the number may well be higher.

In June, U.S. Representative Pramila Jayapal spoke with recently arrived detainees at the Federal Detention Center, SeaTac facility located near Seattle. The facility houses 206 immigrants, 174 of them are women. Many of the women spoke of "fleeing threats of rape, gang violence and political persecution." More than half of the women were mothers who had forcibly been separated from their children, some as young as 12 months old and many did not know where their children were being detained. Commenting on her visit of the facility, Jayapal called the women's stories "heartbreaking," saying, "I've been doing immigration-rights work for almost two decades. I am not new to these stories. I will tell you there was not a dry eye in the house. ... Some of them heard their children screaming for them in the next room. Not a single one of them had been allowed to say goodbye or explain to them what was happening."

Controversy

According to several defense lawyers working with the immigrants, in many cases the Border Patrol agents lie to the parents in order to get them to let go of their kids, telling them that the children are being taken for questioning or "to be given a bath". In May 2018, one Honduran national committed suicide after his 3-year-old son was forcibly taken and separated from him by Border Patrol Agents. The man had crossed the Rio Grande with his son and his wife and turned himself and his family in to authorities to ask for asylum.

Facilities involved

• The Ursula detention facility, operated by Customs and Border Protection, in McAllen, Texas in the Rio Grande Valley—On June 17, the facility housed 1,129 people, including 528 families and nearly 200 unaccompanied minor children.
• Port Isabel Detention Center, operated by Immigration and Customs Enforcement, in Los Fresnos, Texas—This facility is surrounded by swampland and houses detained parents.
• Casa Padre, a private facility owned and operated by Southwest Key Programs, in Brownsville, Texas—A housing facility for children built in a former Walmart and operated under contract for the Department of Health and Human Services. On June 13, it housed 1,469 children, a plurality of whom arrived as unaccompanied minors crossing the border. Southwest Key estimated that 5% of children held there had been separated from their parents.
• Estrella del Norte, a private facility owned and operated by Southwest Key Programs, in Tucson, Arizona—A 300-bed housing facility for children, that housed 287 children in mid-June 2018. A former staff member described conditions in the facility as increasingly "prison-like," and recounts being told to forbid siblings without their parent from hugging one another.
• Tornillo Port of Entry detention camp, operated by the Federal government in Tornillo, Texas—A so-called tent city erected in the desert at the Marcelino Serna Port of Entry in western Texas. The site was chosen for a tent camp slated to house thousands of migrant children, including both unaccompanied minors and children separated from their parents. Representative Beto O'Rourke, who led a protest on Father's Day, June 17, 2018, was told that 200 children were being detained in the camp, 20% of whom were separated from their parents.

Lack of efforts to ensure that families are reunited

A flyer circulated by the Department of Homeland Security in 2018 offering assistance to parents separated from their children while in custody.

The decision to remove children from their families was initiated with little preparedness and has resulted in numerous cases of mothers and fathers not knowing where their child is being held and children who have not had any contact with their family since they were separated. One investigation reported that "The policy is being applied in such an opaque and ad hoc manner that government case workers, public defenders, federal prosecutors, judges, and the Border Patrol do not have clear answers about if, when, or where children will be reunited with their parents, or even whether separated parents are able to communicate with their kids by phone." When asked if separated parents will "just fall into a black hole" and be unable to reunite with their children unless they hire a lawyer, a Justice Department official replied that once the parent is in ICE custody the child is taken into the Health and Human Services system and the government does not try to reunite them.

Representative Pramila Jayapal met with dozens of mothers whose children have been taken away from them, and reported that in some cases Border Patrol agents told the mothers that "their families don't exist anymore". The Boston Globe interviewed foster parents in Michigan who were caring for four children that had been taken from their parents; a six-year-old boy, two eight-year-old girls and a nine-year-old boy. Of the four only one child, the six-year-old, knew where his parent was. The boy and his father, from Honduras, had crossed the border six months previously in an attempt to claim asylum and he had not seen him since he had been led away in handcuffs.

In May, parents in the McAllen facility were given a number to call to locate their children but it was the wrong number and no phones were available for their use. A federal public defender spoke to a judge asking that the families be reunited saying, "“This is a tragedy that’s happening right before this court. There’s a very real possibility the parent will be deported without their children.”

Reactions

Opposition and condemnation

Medical and scientific community

The policy has been condemned by the American Academy of Pediatrics, the American College of Physicians and the American Psychiatric Association. Together, they represent more than 250,000 doctors in the United States. Dr. Irwin Redlener, who co-founded Children's Health Fund, called the policy "dehumanizing" and described it as a form of child abuse.

Religious

Many religious groups also oppose the policy including many Christian churches (the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops, the National Association of Evangelicals, and the major mainline Protestant churches such as Episcopal Church, United Methodist Church, African Methodist Episcopal Church, Presbyterian Church, and Evangelical Lutheran Church); all four major denominations of American Judaism (Reform, Conservative, Orthodox, and Reconstructionist); and Islamic organizations. Evangelist Franklin Graham, son of evangelist Billy Graham, called the practice "disgraceful" and said that "it's terrible to see families ripped apart and I don't support that one bit."

On June 18, a group of more than 600 United Methodist Church clergy and laity announced that they were bringing church law charges against Attorney General Jeff Sessions. The members of the group accused Sessions of "child abuse, immorality, racial discrimination and dissemination of doctrines contrary to the standards of the doctrine of the United Methodist Church." The last charge refers to Sessions' "misuse" of Romans 13, which he quoted to argue that secular law must always be obeyed.

Civil rights and humanitarian groups

A large number of civil rights groups, humanitarian organizations, and other groups condemned the family separation policy, including the Anti-Defamation League, the Lawyers' Committee for Civil Rights Under Law, the League of Women Voters of the United States, the International Rescue Committee, the NAACP, and the National Immigration Law Center.

The Tahirih Justice Center has criticized that the policy of charging asylum seekers with a criminal offense, which subsequent separation of families, is contrary to Article 31 of the Refugee Convention. This Article prohibits any party to the Convention from imposing penalties on asylum seekers on account of their illegal entry or presence, provided the asylum seekers present themselves without delay to the authorities and show good cause for their illegal entry or presence.

The director for the Americas at the International Secretariat of Amnesty International, Erika Guevara Rosas, has stated that the "severe mental suffering that officials have intentionally inflicted on these families for coercive purposes, means that these acts meet the definitions of torture under both US and international law".

Congress

Forty Democratic United States Senators sent a letter to President Trump urging him to "rescind this unethical, ineffective, and inhumane policy and instead prioritize approaches that align with our humanitarian and American values." In response to the policy, Senator Dianne Feinstein introduced a bill, Keep Families Together Act (S. 3036), under which the separation of a child from its parents would only be allowed under very specific conditions. By June 18, the entire Democratic caucus of 49 senators (including the two independents who caucus with the Democrats) had signed on as cosponsors.

Republicans in Congress fell into four groups on the child-separation policy:

• The vast majority of Republicans in Congress kept silent on the policy, seeking to avoid a confrontation with Trump.
• Other congressional Republicans, such as Representative Steve King of Iowa, supported separating families.
• Some congressional Republicans criticized the policy, such as Senator Dean Heller of Nevada and Representative Kevin Cramer of North Dakota, expressed disagreement with the policy but avoid strongly criticizing Trump.
• Another group of congressional Republicans were strongly critical of the policy, including members who are frequent Trump critics (for example, Senators Jeff Flake, John McCain, Ben Sasse, and Susan Collins), but also some who are usually aligned with Trump (for example, Senator Orrin Hatch).

United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights

The policy has also been condemned by the Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights. High Commissioner Zeid Ra’ad Al Hussein called it an "unconscionable" effort by a state to deter parents by abusing children.

Others

All four living former First Ladies of the United States—Rosalynn Carter, Hillary Clinton, Laura Bush, and Michelle Obama—condemned the policy of separating children from their parents. First Lady Melania Trump's office issued a statement saying, "[Mrs. Trump] believes we need to be a country that follows all laws, but also a country that governs with heart.”

A bipartisan group of 75 former U.S. attorneys published an open letter to Attorney General Jeff Sessions, calling for an end to the policy, writing, writing that the policy inflicts "unnecessary trauma and suffering of innocent children" and "is a radical departure from previous Justice Department policy" that "is dangerous, expensive, and inconsistent with the values of the institution in which we served." The former U.S. attorneys also pointed out that the policy is not required by law.

The Fox News commentator Andrew Napolitano has criticised the policy, stating that "In my opinion, it is child abuse to separate children from their parents unless it’s necessary to save a human life".

Fundraising response

Inspired by the viral photo of a crying two-year-old girl looking up at her mother, on June 16 a California couple started a fund-raising campaign on Facebook named "Reunite an immigrant parent with their child" with a goal of raising $1,500. As of the morning of June 19, more than $4 million had been raised. The money will go to The Refugee and Immigrant Center for Education and Legal Services, or RAICES, and provide legal aid for immigrant parents who have been arrested at the border.

The photograph was taken by a professional photographer, John Moore, just after the mother was asked to set her child down to be body-searched before boarding the Border Patrol van and the little girl began to cry. The mother is from Honduras and had been traveling for a month.

Public opinion

The family-separation policy is unpopular among Americans, as shown by four polls; on average, two-thirds of Americans oppose the policy. There is a strong partisan divide; the average of polls showed that Democrats are overwhelmingly opposed to the policy (8% support, 87% oppose, 5% other) while a plurality of Republicans favor it (49% support, 35% oppose, 16% other).

Trump administration response

President Trump

President Trump said in response to the situation: "I hate to see separation of parents and children ... I hate the children being taken away." Trump has falsely blamed the Democrats for "that law" (also calling it "their law") on a number of occasions despite there being no law to mandate the separation of migrant parents and children. The Trump administration's own "zero tolerance" policy announced in April 6, 2018, is responsible for spurring the separations. Trump also said he "certainly wouldn't sign the more moderate" immigration bill proposed by leaders of the House of Representatives with input from moderate Republicans and the White House.

Homeland Security Secretary Kirstjen Nielsen

During a June 18, 2018, White House press conference, Homeland Security Secretary Kirstjen Nielsen stated that during the first five months of fiscal 2018, there was a "314% increase in adults showing up with kids [posing as] a family unit. Those are traffickers, those are smugglers, that is MS-13, those are criminals, those are abusers." However, using DHS data, analysis by The Washington Post found that such groups constituted only 0.61% of "family units" apprehended at the border during that period.

Attorney General Jeff Sessions

Following Christian opposition to the policy, Sessions controversially defended it by citing the Bible's Romans 13. Several commentators have noted that before the Civil War, Romans 13 was traditionally used by advocates of slavery to justify it, and to attack abolitionists.

On June 19 Sessions refuted claims by former CIA Director Michael Hayden that the separation of the immigrant families at the border was similar to what happened at the Auschwitz concentration camp. During the interview he claimed that the comparisons were inacurate as the Nazi's "were keeping the Jews from leaving the country". In the same interview he stated that if the parents are deported the children return with them, but if the parents claim asylum and stay the children are put into the custody of Department of Health and Human Services.

See also

• Protests against family separation in U.S. immigration enforcement
• Catch and release (U.S. immigration policy)
• Family detention