The Trump administration missed a deadline to reunite separated migrant children under age five with their parents, and now the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) is saying they should have to pay for it. The group is recommending to the judge overseeing reunifications that the federal government be ordered to “establish a fund for professional mental health counseling, used to treat children suffering from severe trauma of separation.”
Judge Dana Sabraw had ordered the administration to reunite all kids under five by July 10, a date it missed by a mile, after announcing on July 12 that officials had reunited only 57 kids. But the ACLU said it has “been unable to verify the government's claim that it reunited the 57 children, and said the government did not alert the ACLU about the release of each person from detention, as they had agreed to in court”:
That led to one case where a mother and her children, including a 6-month-old, were left stranded at a bus stop by Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents. According to the court filing, the mother called an attorney and an immigration advocacy group for help, and finally secured a bus ticket around midnight on Tuesday.
With thousands of kids over age five expecting to reunited with their parents by July 26, the ACLU also wants Sabraw to order the government to hand over a list of their names by July 16, give daily reports on reunifications, give families immediate access to an attorney if they are reunited in a detention facility, as well as “to reimburse families for reunification travel costs and DNA tests.” Some sponsors have reportedly had to fork over hundreds, sometimes thousands of dollars to fly children to U.S. homes, while some parents have had to pay for DNA testing to prove their children are their own.
Sabraw, Alan Gomez reports, “is scheduled to hold a court hearing Friday morning ... to decide whether the government did enough. If he finds the government missed his deadlines, he could hold government officials in contempt of court and has a wide variety of punishments available to him.” Trump’s policies are damaging a generation of kids, and taking care of their mental health is absolutely a priority. But what the administration has also done to them is criminal. It’s not the kids who should be locked up, it’s the people who locked them up in the first place.