At 165 days past a federal judge’s reunification deadline, more than 160 children stolen from families at the southern border remain in U.S. custody, according to the most recently available court filing in the lawsuit regarding the reunification of thousands of families separated under the “zero tolerance” policy.
Some of these kids remain in custody because their parents were quickly deported, and now the Trump administration can’t find them. In some instances, American Civil Liberties Union leaders have had to navigate “treacherous roads, distrustful communities and remote villages” to try to locate them. The court filing simply states that “resolution will be delayed” for these kids, but really it’s just a much less harsh way of saying this could end up being permanent separation. But even being freed from a baby jail hasn’t necessarily meant kids have been reunited with their loved ones.
This month will mark one year since 11-year-old Isaac last hugged his mom, after the asylum seekers were torn from each other at the border. While his mom was deported back to Honduras, Isaac was released to an uncle in Illinois. He spent Christmas without her, and now the turn of the new year. “It’s been hard on him,” said the boy’s pastor. “This time of the year is the worst, since it’s all about family.”
But while the Republican caucus has essentially ignored the state-sanctioned kidnapping of children at the border, a new era of accountability is beginning as House Democrats are starting to use their new powers, this weekend calling on Department of Homeland Security Secretary and noted liar Kirstjen Nielsen to testify in front of the House Homeland Security Committee.
Perhaps the new scrutiny is one reason why bad-faith Republicans have for days now been engaged in disingenuous outrage over a curse word. If they want to talk profane, let’s talk about kids orphaned by the U.S. Let’s talk about the sexual and physical abuse of kids in a “non-profit” paid by the U.S. to detain kids. Or does it have to take someone screaming motherfucker inside the children’s prison camp in Tornillo, Texas, for them to notice?
Monday, January 7, marks 165 days since a judge’s reunification deadline. Family separation remains a crisis.