NEW: Federal Judge Orders Trump Administration to Reunite Separated Migrant Families Within 30 Days
Late on Tuesday, a federal judge in California issued an injunction ordering the government to reunite the migrant children who have been separated from their families because of the Trump Administration’s border policy.
According to LA Times, The court order from San Diego District Judge Dana Sabraw says that the government has 10 days to let separated migrant kids call their parents if they haven’t been able to communicate beforehand. The injunction also says that all children under 5 years old must be returned to their families in the next 2 weeks, and older children have to be reunited within 30 days.
The injunction also determined that border officials did not sufficiently plan things out before they started putting President Trump‘s policy into effect.
“The facts set forth before the court portray reactive governance — responses to address a chaotic circumstance of the government’s own making,” Sabraw wrote. “The unfortunate reality is that under the present system migrant children are not accounted for with the same efficiency and accuracy as property. Certainly, that cannot satisfy the requirements of due process.”
Even though Trump rescinded his child separation policy last week via executive order, there are lingering questions about how many families have been broken apart, and how will they all be reunited. In their filing to Shaw, the government warned that they need more time to make total reunification happen, and that “a court imposed process is likely to slow the reunification process and cause confusion and conflicting obligations.”
Lee Gelernt, deputy director of the ACLU’s Immigrants’ Rights Project, had a more positive reception to the injunction.
“This ruling is an enormous victory for parents and children who thought they may never see each other again,” the attorney said. “Many of these parents and children thought they might never see each other again. They have literally been living through a nightmare and the court has now ended their trauma.”
[Image via Getty]
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