How Many Families Were Separated by Immigration in 2015

A photo provided by U.S. Customs and Edge Protection shows the interior of a CBP facility in McAllen, Texas, on Sunday. Immigration officials accept separated thousands of families who crossed the border illegally. Reporters taken on a tour of the facility were not allowed by agents to interview any of the detainees or have photos, the AP reported. U.South. Customs and Edge Protection's Rio Grande Valley Sector via AP hide caption

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U.Southward. Customs and Border Protection'south Rio Grande Valley Sector via AP

A photograph provided by U.S. Customs and Border Protection shows the interior of a CBP facility in McAllen, Texas, on Lord's day. Clearing officials have separated thousands of families who crossed the border illegally. Reporters taken on a tour of the facility were not allowed by agents to interview any of the detainees or take photos, the AP reported.

U.South. Customs and Border Protection's Rio Grande Valley Sector via AP

Updated at 4:40 a.chiliad. ET Wednesday

Since early May, 2,342 children take been separated from their parents after crossing the Southern U.S. border, co-ordinate to the Department of Homeland Security, as office of a new immigration strategy by the Trump assistants that has prompted widespread outcry.

On Wednesday, President Trump signed an executive order reversing his policy of separating families — and replacing it with a policy of detaining entire families together, including children, but ignoring legal time limits on the detention of minors.

Here's what we know nearly the family separation policy, its history and its effects:

Did the Trump administration take a policy of separating families at the edge?

Aye.

In April, U.S. Chaser General Jeff Sessions ordered prosecutors along the border to "adopt immediately a zippo-tolerance policy" for illegal border crossings. That included prosecuting parents traveling with their children likewise as people who subsequently attempted to request asylum.

In Their Own Words

President Trump: "The United states of america volition non exist a migrant military camp and information technology will not be a refugee holding facility. ... Not on my sentinel."

Attorney General Jeff Sessions: "If you cross this border unlawfully, then we volition prosecute you lot. Information technology's that elementary. ... If yous are smuggling a child, and so we will prosecute you and that child will be separated from you as required by law. If you don't like that, then don't smuggle children over our edge."

Sessions on whether the policy is a deterrent: "Yeah, hopefully people will get the message and come through the border at the port of entry and non break beyond the border unlawfully."

Homeland Security Secretary Kirstjen Nielsen: Under the "zero tolerance" policy, when families cross the border illegally, "Operationally, what that means is we will take to separate your family. That's no different than what we do every day in every part of the United States when an developed of a family commits a crime."

White House chief of staff John Kelly: Separating families is "a tough deterrent. ... The children will be taken care of — put into foster care or whatever. But the large signal is they elected to come illegally into the Us and this is a technique that no one hopes will be used extensively or for very long."

White House officials have repeatedly acknowledged that under that policy, they separate all families who cross the border. Sessions has described it as deterrence.

U.Due south. Customs and Border Protection explains on its site and in a flyer that edge-crossing families volition exist separated.

The policy was unique to the Trump administration. Previous administrations did not, as a general principle, carve up all families crossing the U.Southward. border illegally.

What policy did Trump enact on Midweek?

On Wednesday, Trump ended the policy of family separation and replaced information technology with a policy of family detention.

He signed an executive order that kept the cypher-tolerance policy in place — just added, "It is also the policy of this Administration to maintain family unity, including by detaining conflicting families together where appropriate and consistent with law and available resources." Information technology did provide an exception for when authorities believe keeping the family unit together would be harmful for the child.

In signing the club, Trump noted "there may be some litigation" — that is, a legal challenge to the new policy.

A 2015 court order, based on a certificate called the Flores settlement, prevents the regime from keeping migrant children in detention for more than than 20 days. Trump has instructed Attorney General Jeff Sessions to ask the federal courtroom to modify that agreement in order to allow children, and by extension, unified families, to be kept in detention without time limit.

The request asks, specifically, for permission from the courts "to detain alien families together throughout the pendency of criminal proceedings for improper entry or whatsoever removal or other immigration proceedings."

Trump besides calls for branches of his administration to brand facilities available for detaining families with children — and calls on the Defence Department, to build new facilities "if necessary."

The Obama administration practiced family detention, until the court order prohibited it. Many of the same groups that accept vocally denounced family separation are also opposed to family detention, and had urged supervised release instead.

Children currently remain separated from their parents. In signing the order, Trump said it would keep families together "in the immediate days forwards." It is not clear when or how currently separated families volition be reunited.

What happens when families are separated?

The process begins at a Community and Edge Protection detention facility. Merely many details most what happens adjacent — how children are taken from their parents and by whom — were unclear.

According to the Texas Ceremonious Rights Project, which has been able to speak with detained adults, multiple parents reported that they were separated from their children and non given any data about where their children would go. The arrangement likewise says that in some cases, the children were taken abroad under the pretense that they would be getting a bath.

The Los Angeles Times spoke to unnamed Homeland Security officials who said parents were given data about the family separation process and that "accusations of surreptitious efforts to separate are completely false."

From the point of separation forward, the policy for treating the separated children appears to be the same as existing systems for detaining and housing unaccompanied immigrant children — designed for minors who cross the border alone. Those unaccompanied minors were generally older than the children affected by family separation.

A photo provided past U.S. Customs and Border Protection shows people detained at a facility in McAllen, Texas, on Sunday. U.S. Customs and Border Protection's Rio Grande Valley Sector via AP hide explanation

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U.S. Customs and Border Protection's Rio Grande Valley Sector via AP

A photograph provided by U.Due south. Community and Border Protection shows people detained at a facility in McAllen, Texas, on Lord's day.

U.S. Customs and Edge Protection's Rio Grande Valley Sector via AP

Where have children gone once they've been separated?

The respond varies over time. Children begin at Community and Border Protection facilities, are transferred to longer-term shelters and are supposed to eventually be placed with families or sponsors. Hither's more about each pace:

Customs and Border Protection facilities. If you've seen photos of children in what expect similar chain-link cages — whether unaccompanied minors in 2014 or separated children in 2018 — they are probably photos from a Customs and Border Protection facility.

Children usually are held here initially, but it is illegal to keep them for more 3 days — these holding cells are not meant for long-term detention.

The Associated Press visited one site on Monday and described a "large, nighttime facility" with split up wings for children, adults and families:

"Inside an old warehouse in South Texas, hundreds of children await in a series of cages created by metallic fencing. One cage had 20 children inside. Scattered about are bottles of water, bags of fries and big foil sheets intended to serve as blankets."

Such facilities have been criticized earlier for poor weather condition and reports of corruption and inhumane treatment, including a number of allegations the CBP strongly denies.

Child immigrant shelters. Within three days, children are supposed to be transferred from immigration detention to the Office of Refugee Resettlement, which is role of the Department of Health and Human Services.

For 15 years, ORR has handled the "care and placement" of unaccompanied migrant children. Until recently, that normally meant minors who crossed into the U.South. alone. Now information technology also includes children who take been separated from their families by government, including much younger children.

On a telephone call with reporters on Tuesday, a Border Patrol official said that it's a matter of "discretion" how young is too young for a child to be separated from their parents. In general, he said, the historic period of 5 has been used as a benchmark, with children younger than that called "tender-aged."

The CEO of Southwest Key, which operates 26 ORR shelters, tells NPR the children at his facilities range from ages "zero to 17."

On the same telephone call, an HHS official said that some of the ORR shelters are specifically equipped to take intendance of children younger than 13. He provided few details and could not say how many children nether 13, under 5 or under 2 are currently existence held by HHS.

Now The Associated Press reports that it has located three centers in Texas that "have been apace repurposed to serve needs of children including some under 5," with a fourth center scheduled to open in Houston. Infants are amidst the detained children, the AP reports.

ORR has a network of about 100 shelter facilities, all operated by nonprofit groups, where children are detained.

NPR's John Burnett recently joined other reporters to visit one such facility, a converted Walmart Supercenter housing nearly 1,500 boys ages x to 17. Journalists' admission to that facility in Brownsville, Texas, was express, simply the site was markedly different from CBP facilities seen in photos released by the authorities — the teenage boys slept on beds instead of mats on the floor, in rooms instead of cages, and had access to classes and games.

ORR says children remain at these shelters for "fewer than 57 days on boilerplate." However some children take been kept detained for months longer than that, and some advocates say certain facilities improperly administer psychotropic medications.

Observers have raised concerns nigh the psychological cost on young children who enter this shelter system. NPR's Joel Rose talked to one former shelter employee who said he quit subsequently he was instructed to prevent siblings from hugging each other. The organization that runs the shelter said information technology allows touching and hugging in certain circumstances.

Where Are The Girls And Young Children?
Official photos and videos have shown only older boys at shelter facilities.

The Section of Wellness and Human Services says at that place are specialized shelters for children under 13. No images from those shelters have been released, but regime say new images and videos will be provided later on this week.

The Associated Press says it has identified three shelters in Texas that are housing young children, including infants. The locations of those shelters were not released by the government.

More than x,000 migrant children, including children who crossed the border alone, are kept in ORR facilities. And existing facilities are filling upwards — the shelter Burnett visited was 95 percentage full.

Tent camps . A temporary facility has been set up in Tornillo, Texas, near El Paso. Trivial is known almost the facility, and reporters have not been allowed inside, just KQED'south John Sepulvado has seen the tent military camp from outside.

"It's a heavy-duty-grade white tent in the middle of a desert," he told NPR's Hither & Now. "It'due south behind 2 concatenation-link fences and there'due south a dirt easement that'southward on tiptop of it, so you tin can't actually see into it from the American side."

Detained migrant children play soccer at a newly constructed tent encampment equally seen through a border contend near the U.S. Customs and Edge Protection port of entry in Tornillo, Texas, on Mon. Jose Luis Gonzalez/Reuters hide explanation

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Jose Luis Gonzalez/Reuters

Detained migrant children play soccer at a newly constructed tent encampment as seen through a edge fence about the U.S. Customs and Edge Protection port of entry in Tornillo, Texas, on Monday.

Jose Luis Gonzalez/Reuters

The tent campsite popped upward rapidly, with the commencement large white tent appearing essentially overnight. Within days, a complex of smaller tan tents surrounded it; photos released by HHS prove bunk beds packed tightly into the tents.

It's not clear how many teenagers are inside, Sepulvado says, but the regime was planning to expand it to hold some 4,000 detained minors.

This is non the first time the U.S. government has used temporary shelters for minors: During the surge of unaccompanied minors crossing the border in 2014, HHS gear up several temporary facilities at military bases.

Sponsors or family members. Ultimately, ORR tries to find family unit members, foster parents or sponsors to accept in children. Parents are the preferred choice, only that has not a possibility for children who take been separated from parents who remain in detention.

It is not clear if, under Trump's new policy, separated children might even so be placed with sponsors or if they will all return to detention with their parents.

In that location is no fourth dimension limit on how long it tin can take to find a dwelling for a kid, but again, ORR says that on average the process takes less than two months.

By law, those relatives or sponsors must, among other requirements, evidence that they can provide for the pocket-size — sometimes verified with home visits — and ensure the minor'due south attendance at any future court hearing.

The Trump administration has said that information technology intends to bailiwick sponsors to increased scrutiny.

Under those new rules, the criminal background and immigration status of all sponsors, and whatever other adult living in the household, will be examined. Biometric information, such as fingerprints, too will be required. The checks will exist performed past U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement and non by ORR.

Critics say these new background checks will accept a spooky effect.

"Nether the current circumstances and given the anti-immigrant rhetoric of the assistants, it may be that few will be willing to come forward to claim children," said Bob Carey, who was manager of ORR under the Obama administration.

Can parents who are prosecuted be reunited with their children?

Parents face a court hearing where, every bit Burnett has reported, they may face up objections from prosecutors if their lawyers try to bring upwards their children in a bid for leniency.

If parents are eventually released from detention, they will be able to accept custody of their own children, Nielsen said at a news conference Mon.

ICE Instructions On How To Notice A Separated Kid

• The Immigration and Customs Enforcement call center is bachelor Grand-F, eight a.m. to 8 p.m. ET, at ane-888-351-4024 (or 9116# from inside an ICE facility)
• Parents can call the Office of Refugee Resettlement, which operates shelters, at ane-800-203-7001 (or 699# from within an ICE detention facility)
• Friends, family and advocates tin can email ICE at Parental.Interests@ice.dhs.gov or ORR at information@ORRNCC.com

In a statement to NPR, Ice expanded on the process of family reunification.

During a parent'due south detention, "ICE and ORR will work together to locate separated children, verify the parent/child relationship, and gear up regular advice and removal coordination, if necessary," ICE says. A hotline has been gear up to aid parents and children detect each other.

"Water ice will make every effort to reunite the kid with the parent once the parent's immigration case has been adjudicated," a spokesman said. Parents existence deported may asking that their children go out with them or may decide to leave the children in the U.Due south. to pursue their own clearing claim, ICE says. For instance, they might suggest some other family unit member in the U.S. to sponsor their child, equally described to a higher place.

However, The New Yorker spoke to lawyers and advocates who said in that location is no formal process or clear protocol for tracking parents and children inside the system and that chaotic systems and inadequate record keeping make it hard even to know which facility a child might be kept at.

And The New York Times reports that some parents accept been deported without their children, confronting their will.

What is the police regarding the treatment of migrant children?

A two-decade-quondam court settlement, the Flores settlement, and a law called the Trafficking Victims Protection Reauthorization Act both specify how the authorities must care for migrant children.

They crave that migrant children be placed in "the least restrictive environment" or sent to live with family members. They likewise limit how long families with children tin exist detained; courts have interpreted that limit as 20 days.

Previous administrations take released families to meet these requirements. President Trump has said the law requires him to divide families, which is not true. His advisers have presented a more complicated statement for how the law requires family separation.

"The laws prohibit u.s.a. from detaining families while they get through prosecution," Nielsen said on Mon — a reference to the 20-24-hour interval limits on how long children tin can be detained. Therefore, she says, "nosotros cannot detain families together."

She argues that that leaves the administration with the options of not enforcing the law, which information technology rejects, or separating families. But clearing advocates and legal experts say that at that place are other options, including those that previous administrations have chosen.

Trump's new order has finer requested a alter to the existing police force, to loosen restrictions on the detention of children.

What was the policy under President Obama?

The Obama administration established family detention centers that kept families together while their cases were processed. Trump's executive gild appears to finer revive this policy.

The Obama-era centers were sharply criticized for keeping children detained even if they were still with their parents. A court ruled that those detention centers violated the Flores agreement and that families should be released together.

The Obama White Business firm too had a policy of releasing families through a programme chosen Alternatives to Detention that notwithstanding immune them to be closely supervised — for instance, by giving mothers talocrural joint monitors before releasing them.

The ACLU welcomed the Alternatives to Detention plan, merely other immigrant-rights groups had reservations.

Every bit Burnett reported, one for-turn a profit prison house company that was making money off immigrant detention was also profiting off those ankle monitor systems.

Ice tells NPR that the Alternatives to Detention program is notwithstanding active nether the Trump assistants, but Trump has repeatedly said he opposes what he denounces as "catch and release."

Can families request aviary, allowing them to stay together?

What Is Asylum?

Seeking asylum means request the U.Due south. to accept yous — legally — because of persecution you lot are facing in your dwelling house land.

Crossing the border illegally is a misdemeanor; for a person who has already been deported one time, it's a felony. Both types of crimes are currently being prosecuted with no exceptions, fifty-fifty if a person later requests asylum.

Seeking asylum at a port of entry, however, is not a crime at all.

Hypothetically, yep. In practice, maybe not.

Families that request asylum at ports of entry are meant to be kept together while their claims are processed.

Simply at that place is show that fifty-fifty families who seek asylum at ports of entry are being separated. One loftier-profile case involves a Congolese woman who sought asylum and still was separated from her 7-year-old daughter. In Feb, NPR'southward Burnett reported on the legal battle of Ms. 50 five. Water ice.

Hers is not an isolated case, according to immigrant advocates.

"Lutheran Immigration and Refugee Service has documented 53 incidents of family separation in the last nine months, mostly Central Americans. Other immigrant support groups say there are many more cases," Burnett reported.

Reporter Jean Guerrero of KPBS in San Diego reported on the instance of a Salvadoran male parent, Jose Demar Fuentes, who says he sought asylum and was separated from his ane-year-old son, Mateo, despite having an original birth certificate proving that he is the boy'southward male parent.

For those seeking asylum at ports of entry, nosotros have continued the policy from previous Administrations and will only dissever if the child is in danger, in that location is no custodial relationship between 'family' members, or if the developed has cleaved a law.

— Secretary Kirstjen M. Nielsen (@SecNielsen) June 17, 2018

In a White Firm printing briefing Monday, Nielsen said, "DHS is not separating families legitimately seeking aviary at ports of entry." Merely she said DHS "will just divide a family if we cannot determine at that place is a familial relationship, if child is at take chances with the parent or legal guardian, or if the parent or legal guardian is referred for prosecution."

Burnett likewise has reported that some families are not being immune to asking asylum — that they are being repeatedly turned abroad and told the CBP facility is too full to accept them.

Nielsen has denied that some aviary-seekers who present themselves at a port of entry are beingness turned abroad, which would be a violation of international law.

"We are saying we want to take care of you in the right way. Right now we practice not take the resources at this particular moment in time. Come back," she said.

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Source: https://www.npr.org/2018/06/19/621065383/what-we-know-family-separation-and-zero-tolerance-at-the-border

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