The Biden administration's executive order to reunite children who were separated from their parents during the “zero tolerance” policy under the Trump administration made some progress before it was one year old.

As published by the Latino Rebels last month, the Department of Homeland Security announced that “100 children, mostly from Central America, are back with their families and about 350 more reunifications are in process after it adopted measures to enhance the program”.

The report added that “the task force has been complicated by a number of factors, including inadequate or missing records on the separated families, the sheer number of cases and the fact that many parents are in remote Central American communities and were unable to track down their children or get to the United States to retrieve them”.

“In September, the task force had reunited 50 families when the administration announced a partnership to speed up the effort with the International Organization for Migration and the creation of a web portal —Juntos.gov or Together.gov— for parents to contact the U.S. government and work through the reunification process”.

“About 5,500 children were forcibly removed from their parents under Trump, mostly in 2018, as his administration sought to stop an increase in people crossing the U.S.-Mexico border with criminal prosecutions, even if the migrants were presenting themselves to authorities to seek asylum as permitted under the law”.

Facing widespread execration, including from Republicans, Trump interrupted the practice in June 2018, just days before a judge ordered the program to end in response to a lawsuit filed by the American Civil Liberties Union.

The executive director of the government's Family Reunification Task Force, Michelle Brané, said in an interview late December that "officials believe there are still about 1,150 children whose whereabouts have not been confirmed”.

“Parents and children, including some who arrived at U.S. airports this week, are being granted humanitarian parole to reside in the country for a minimum of three years and may pursue permanent status through asylum or another program. They are also receiving counseling services”. 

As we published on our page on December 16th, hundreds of families have also filed lawsuits against the federal government.

"That came after media reports of a proposed settlement that would include payments of several hundred thousand dollars to each affected person sparked outrage among Biden administration critics in Congress and elsewhere”.