The previous administration kidnapped thousands of children from their parents at the southern border without so much as even bothering to track these separations. The previous administration missed a court-mandated deadline to reunite these families, with no official facing repercussions. Despite the Biden administration's efforts to reunite families ripped apart by that administration, as many as 1,200 possibly remain separated years later.
The Washington Post reported this week that Tae Johnson, an Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) official who has continued to serve under the Biden administration, used the word “fiasco.” But he wasn’t saying the separations, lack of central tracking system, or the delays were a fiasco, but that reunifications were happening much too quickly. And, he’s still serving in the federal government today.
RELATED STORY: Family reunification task force says at least 3,900 kids were stolen from parents by previous admin
Campaign Action
As The Washington Post notes, officials including former Attorney General Jefferson Beauregard Sessions III claimed the policy was all about law and order when, in fact, it was about cruelty. As asylum-seeking parents were sent to court for criminal penalties in relation to crossing the border, their kids were forcibly sent to an Office of Refugee Resettlement (ORR) contracted facility.
But the report said that officials, including Johnson, complained about swift reunifications. Matthew Albence, a former official who once claimed ICE’s migrant family jails are like “summer camps,” expressed worry that court proceedings for parents would go so fast that they’d return to a Customs and Border Protection (CBP) facility before their children could be sent off to ORR.
“Albence said CBP should work with ICE ‘to prevent this from happening,’ such as by taking the children themselves to ORR ‘at an accelerated pace’ or bringing the adults directly to ICE from criminal court, instead of returning them to their children,” the report continued. That’s right—get ‘em outta here faster, is what he really said. The Washington Post said that another official, David Jennings, complained about ORR not accepting children because parents were returning from court. “No consequence at this point,” he said in the report. “ORR needs arm twisted.”
“[M]igrants’ lawyers argue that the new disclosures show the government intended to separate families and deter others, and they say that bolsters their claim that the government intended to inflict harm,” the report continued.
This has always been obvious. A two-year investigation by the Justice Department’s inspector general showed Sessions wanted to show no mercy to asylum-seeking families. “We need to take away children,” Sessions reportedly said. His deputy, Rod Rosenstein, ”went even further,” “telling the five prosecutors that it did not matter how young the children were.”
Sessions, who could barely hide his glee when he walked out to announce the rescission of the popular Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals program in 2017, refused to testify in the inspector general’s investigation. Sessions did talk to Reuters, where he falsely claimed it “was unfortunate, very unfortunate” that children couldn’t be quickly reunited with their parents. But it was exactly what they wanted. Sessions openly said on right-wing programming that he hoped the cruelty scared away other families. Friendly reminder: Asylum is legal immigration.
Further findings from the Department of Homeland Security watchdog confirmed that when officials were under court order to reunite families, they so badly botched the process that some kids were forced to wait in vans overnight to be reunited with their parents. In one child’s case, they were forced to wait in a van for nearly two days.
Physicians for Human Rights said in a study last year that children who were kidnapped from their parents continued to meet the criteria for post-traumatic stress disorder a year after reunification. One child, an 8-year-old boy, continued to meet criteria for PTSD, as well as separation anxiety disorder, two years after reunification. Despite this state-sanctioned cruelty, “[n]o official who designed, implemented, or defended it has been held accountable or barred from federal employment,” tweeted Florence Project’s Kari Hong.
RELATED STORIES:
It was always clear family separation policy would result in trauma. This new study confirms that
Biden administration loses request to dismiss family separation lawsuit