Trump administration family separation policy

Ursula detention facility in McAllen, Texas, dated June 2018
Juveniles, showing sleeping mats and thermal blankets on floor
This article is part of
a series about
Donald Trump
Business and personal
45th & 47th President of the
United States
Tenure
Policies
Appointments
Presidential campaigns
Impeachments
Civil and criminal prosecutions
COVID-19 pandemic
Donald Trump's signature
Seal of the President of the United States

The family separation policy under the first Trump administration was a controversial immigration enforcement strategy implemented in the United States from 2017 to 2018, aimed at deterring illegal immigration by separating migrant children from their parents or guardians. The policy, presented to the public as a "zero tolerance" approach, was intended to encourage tougher legislation and discourage unauthorized crossings.[1] In some cases, families following the legal procedure to apply for asylum at official border crossings were also separated. Under the policy, federal authorities separated children and infants from parents or guardians with whom they had entered the US.[2][3][4] The adults were prosecuted and held in federal jails or deported, and the children were placed under the supervision of the US Department of Health and Human Services (HHS).[2] Prior to their transfer to HHS, some children spent three weeks or more in overcrowded border control centers, where they reported minimal food, no access to clean clothes or bathing facilities, and no adult caretakers; girls as young as ten were taking care of younger children.[5][6][7]

Family separations began in the summer of 2017, prior to the public announcement of the "zero tolerance" policy in April 2018.[8] The policy was officially adopted across the entire US–Mexico border from April 2018 until June 2018.[9] The practice of family separation continued for at least eighteen months after the policy's official end, with an estimated 1,100 families separated between June 2018 and the end of 2019.[10] In total, more than 5,500 children, including infants, were separated from their families.[11][12][13]

By early June 2018, it emerged that the policy did not include measures to reunite the families that it had separated.[14][15] Scott Lloyd, director of the Office of Refugee Resettlement, had directed his staff not to maintain a list of children who had been separated from their parents.[16] Matthew Albence, head of enforcement and removal operations for Immigration and Customs Enforcement, had told his colleagues to prevent reunification even after the parents had been processed by the judicial system, saying that reunification "undermines the entire effort."[16] Following national and international criticism,[17] on June 20, 2018, Trump signed an executive order ending family separations at the border.[18] On June 26, 2018, US District Judge Dana Sabraw issued a nationwide preliminary injunction against the family separation policy and ordered that all children be reunited with their parents within thirty days.[19][20] In 2019, a release of emails obtained by NBC News revealed that although the administration had said that they would use the government's "central database" to reconnect the thousands of families that had been separated, the government had only enough information to reconnect sixty children with their parents.[21] The administration refused to provide funds to cover the expenses of reuniting families, and volunteer organizations provided both volunteers and funding.[22][23][24] Lawyers working to reunite families stated that 666 children still had not been found as of November 2020, and by March 2024 the ACLU increased the estimate to 2,000 children.[25][26]

  1. ^ Cite error: The named reference lead ref 1 was invoked but never defined (see the help page).
  2. ^ a b Cite error: The named reference horwitz12 was invoked but never defined (see the help page).
  3. ^ "Transcript: Sen. Susan Collins on 'Face the Nation'". Face the Nation. CBS News. June 17, 2018. Archived from the original on October 3, 2019. Retrieved June 17, 2018.
  4. ^ Cite error: The named reference Everett was invoked but never defined (see the help page).
  5. ^ Attanasio, Cedar; Burke, Garance; Mendoza, Martha (June 21, 2019). "Attorneys: Texas border facility is neglecting migrant kids". Associated Press. Archived from the original on October 26, 2019. Retrieved September 9, 2019.
  6. ^ "Are US child migrant detainees entitled to soap and beds?". BBC News. June 20, 2019. Archived from the original on June 27, 2019. Retrieved June 23, 2019.
  7. ^ Chotiner, Isaac (June 22, 2019). "Inside a Texas Building Where the Government Is Holding Immigrant Children". The New Yorker. Archived from the original on June 23, 2019. Retrieved June 23, 2019.
  8. ^ Cite error: The named reference audit was invoked but never defined (see the help page).
  9. ^ Cite error: The named reference lead ref 2 was invoked but never defined (see the help page).
  10. ^ "Looking At Lasting Effects Of Trump's Family Separation Policy At The Southern Border". NPR. Archived from the original on October 13, 2020. Retrieved October 16, 2020.
  11. ^ Shapiro, Ari; Hodges, Lauren; Intagliata, Christopher (August 9, 2022). "Investigation reveals how government bureaucracy failed to stop family separations". NPR. Archived from the original on August 14, 2022. Retrieved August 14, 2022.
  12. ^ Narea, Nicole (October 25, 2019). "The Trump administration just admitted that it separated an additional 1,500 immigrant families". Vox. Archived from the original on October 26, 2019. Retrieved April 20, 2022.
  13. ^ "Family separation under the Trump administration—a timeline". Southern Poverty Law Center. Archived from the original on October 6, 2020. Retrieved June 19, 2020.
  14. ^ Goodwin, Liz (June 10, 2018). "'Children are being used as a tool' in Trump's effort to stop border crossings". The Boston Globe. Archived from the original on January 18, 2019. Retrieved June 18, 2018.
  15. ^ Kopan, Tal (June 29, 2018). "Government never had specific plan to reunify families, court testimony shows". CNN. Archived from the original on March 6, 2019.
  16. ^ a b Cite error: The named reference Dickerson Separation was invoked but never defined (see the help page).
  17. ^ Cite error: The named reference lead ref 3 was invoked but never defined (see the help page).
  18. ^ Cite error: The named reference lead ref 4 was invoked but never defined (see the help page).
  19. ^ Shear, Michael D.; Davis, Julie Hirschfeld; Kaplan, Thomas; Pear, Robert (June 26, 2018). "Federal Judge in California Halts Splitting of Migrant Families at Border". The New York Times. Archived from the original on June 27, 2018.
  20. ^ "Order Granting Plaintiffs' Motion for Classwide Preliminary Injunction], Ms. L., et al. v. U.S. immigration & Customs Enforcement, et al., Case No. 18-cv-0428 (S.D. Cal. June 26, 2018)". Politico. Archived from the original on July 25, 2020. Retrieved June 27, 2018.
  21. ^ Soboroff, Jacob. "Emails show Trump admin had 'no way to link' separated migrant children to parents". NBC News. Archived from the original on May 8, 2019. Retrieved May 8, 2019.
  22. ^ "Why hundreds of migrant children remain separated from their parents". PBS NewsHour. October 21, 2020. Archived from the original on October 22, 2020. Retrieved October 22, 2020.
  23. ^ Ainsley, Julia; Soboroff, Jacob. "Lawyers: We can't find parents of 545 kids separated by Trump administration". NBC News. Archived from the original on October 20, 2020. Retrieved October 21, 2020.
  24. ^ Cite error: The named reference Dickerson was invoked but never defined (see the help page).
  25. ^ Soboroff, Jacob; Ainsley, Julia. "Lawyers say they can't find the parents of 545 migrant children separated by Trump administration". NBC News. Archived from the original on November 10, 2020. Retrieved November 10, 2020.
  26. ^ French, Piper (February 27, 2024). "Will the Families Separated by Trump Ever Be Reunited?". Intelligencer. Archived from the original on September 25, 2024. Retrieved March 2, 2024.