Photo: John Moore / Getty Images
For: The Opinion
Tuesday, October 1
The US has reunited 100 migrant children with their families, separated by zero tolerance
According to figures from the Department of Homeland Security, 100 children, most of them from Central America, have been reunited with their families ; 350 family reunifications are in process.
It is about people who were separated from their loved ones by the zero tolerance policy , implemented in the government of Donald Trump.
The administration of Joe Biden, which is about to turn one year, gave foot to an initiative focused precisely on returning to families the children who were separated from them.
On his first day of government, President Biden issued an executive order aiming to reunite families separated by the previous administration, in a tough policy aimed at discouraging illegal immigration.
“I would have loved for this to work faster. But we are making progress and I feel like we are gaining momentum ”, assured Michelle Brané, of the Operational Group for Family Reunion, part of the government.
“We have a lot more work to do. We are dedicated to finding each family and giving them the opportunity to reunite and recover, “wrote Alejandro Mayorkas, Secretary of National Security.
This week our Family Reunification Task Force reunified the 100 th family separated under the prior administration’s cruel policy.
We are not doing it alone. We could not do it without our partners in the community who work tirelessly, every day, in support of those in need.
– Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas (@SecMayorkas) December 23, 2021
And the difficult task of reunification has been further complicated by factors such as the high number of cases, the fact that many parents are in remote communities, or that the files have been misplaced or not filled properly.
In efforts to achieve this, the government of Joe Biden partnered with the International Organization for Migrations, in addition to the creation of the Internet portal Juntos.gov or Together.gov so that families could communicate with the US authorities.
In short, some 5, 500 children were separated from their parents by force, mainly in 2018 , under the mandate of Donald Trump.
Michelle Brané admitted that “it is not yet near the end at all. This is just the beginning and we are hopeful that families see that reunifications are happening and feel confident to approach. ” There are still about 1, 100 separate families.
There are hundreds of lawsuits against the federal government, filed by families who are victims of this separation.
Who have already been reunited, including some newcomers this week to the country, they are receiving humanitarian conditional leave, as well as psychological counseling services.
With information from The As s ociated Press.
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