The Trump administration can’t wash its hands of this humanitarian disaster. A federal judge has ruled that the potentially thousands of migrant families that were separated prior to the official implementation of the administration’s “zero tolerance” policy should be included in the class-action lawsuit that forced the administration to reunite thousands of other families last summer.
While Judge Dana Sabraw has not yet ruled whether the administration must track down and reunite these additional families, his decision is nevertheless a stinging rebuke to officials, who have sought to keep these kids out of the American Civil Liberties Union-led lawsuit. "The hallmark of a civilized society,” he said, “is measured by how it treats its people and those within its borders.”
Sabraw’s decision is the result of a report from the Department of Health and Human Services Office of the Inspector General last January revealing that potentially thousands more families were separated before the policy. "How many more children were separated is unknown by us and HHS,” the OIG said. The ACLU then went to court to ask Sabraw to have these families included in the lawsuit.
But the Trump administration immediately fought back, essentially claiming it would be too much work to track them all down. During the court hearing, Sabraw was already indicating that the administration would be losing this one. "It's important to recognize that we're talking about human beings," he said at the time. "Every person needs to be accounted for."
“The court made clear that potentially thousands of children’s lives are at stake,” the ACLU said about his decision, “and that the Trump administration cannot simply ignore the devastation it has caused.” Sabraw must order their reunification. The only reason why others have been reunited en masse is his 2018 order. And as Homeland Security Secretary Kristjen Nielsen made clear in her House testimony last week, she just doesn’t give a shit about these kids and would be perfectly fine letting them languish.
228 days past Sabraw’s reunification deadline, a number of children stolen from families under the policy remain in HHS custody. Why Nielsen and HHS secretary Alex Azar aren’t in jail for contempt of court, only he knows. Border officials have continued to separate hundreds of kids from families since the supposed end of the policy, sometimes on the basis of a total lie. Family separation remains a crisis.