Trump’s team caged 500+ children at the border. Two children died trying to cross the border and most likely even more have died.
These children need to be returned to their rightful parents leaving the unanswered question—how?
The simplest solution is simple enough, DNA tracing.
This process is not expensive, we are dealing with 500+ children, not thousands.
Out government must first collect the DNA record of all the children that are still in our government’s custody. Then our government can offer free NDA tests to anyone who claims to be the parents of these lost children. If no claims are made within a year, then the remaining children are given US citizenship and placed into foster homes ending this tragic Trump debacle once and for all.
I would assume the DNA could hep determine what country or ‘people’ they are from, but how they would ever find the parents is going to involve a lot of luck in some cases. IF these countries are 3rd world, it’s going to be hard to get DNA from relatives as those people don’t really have the means for ‘23 and Me’. I would assume practically some of this children would have to be adopted out.
This should be a huge early priority for the new administration. Appoint a task force with daily press briefings as to how many families have been reunited and how many remain. Make it daily news until every single family is reunited.
Because the people who have been through the detention and / or deportation by the US government are going to be thrilled to hand their DNA data over to the US government, right?
I mean, in practical terms, I agree, but some of these children may have been informally adopted as infants by neighbors or more distant relatives. That’s not uncommon. Certainly what is needed is a neutral party, outside the United States, to take over the task; maybe the Mexican government.
Let’s correct some misinformation here. First of all, “caging” children began with Obama:
Second, these “parents” have chosen not to be reunited with their children:
“out of the parents of 485 children whom Plaintiffs’ counsel has been able to contact, they’ve yet to identify a single family that wants their child reunited with them in their country of origin.”
Speaking of misinformation. Under the Obama administration, there were a number of unaccompanied minors who had to be held temporarily in unfortunately poor accommodations.
Under the Trump administration, this was not an unfortunate side effect, this was the intent.
It is quite probable, given that they were seeking asylum from violence and persecution, that their families were murdered upon being deported, and so no one is left to claim these children.
Hopefully that is not the case, and instead they are simply hard to locate due to the poor communication and logistics structure of those countries.
Those parents may have been deported into circumstances in which they are unable to make such claims or even unable to find out that they’re supposed to.
We need to be a hella lot more proactive than that.
Also, some of the children may already have been transferred out of the government’s custody. We need to find them too.
Once we’ve actually located both parents and children, then DNA testing is a reasonable way to settle any disagreements about whether people are related or not. But bear in mind that some children may have arrived with other family members/guardians, because their parents may have been unable to travel or may have been dead. They shouldn’t be disappeared and stolen from their aunts or trusted neighbors, either.
As we’re correcting misinformation: during the Obama administration, those weren’t children separated from their parents by US authorities. They were teenagers who arrived at the border unaccompanied to start with. And the cages were emergency housing due to a sudden influx of such people who overwhelmed the normal housing arrangements.
This information is all over the place. If you really haven’t run into it yet, you badly need to widen the range of sources where you get your news.
What you have written implies that most of the “lost” children’s parents have been contacted. I’m unable to verify your source, or the implication. The last article you linked, from the Washington Post, is dated October 21, 2020 at 6:28pm EDT, with no revisions noted. A plaintext search for the number “485” returns one result only:
"Of the 1,500 separations, approximately 500 are not considered to be part of the lawsuit. Gelernt said advocates have contacted the parents of 485 of the children. DHS says these parents have opted not to reunite with their children, but Gelernt said many parents still hope to come to the United States to be with them.
Of the 545 children whose parents have not yet been found, advocates have managed to reach 183 of the children, and they remain in the United States."
So, not only does it differ from the quotation you procured, it is referring to a different group of children than those under consideration in this topic. I would appreciate if you could clarify or perhaps retract your post.
Here it is :
"out of the parents of 485 children whom Plaintiffs’ counsel has been able to contact, they’ve yet to identify a single family that wants their child reunited with them in their country of origin.”
DHS numbers disagree somewhat with the plaintiff’s numbers.
I mean, they left a violent and impoverished place to try to give their children a better life.
I’m sure that they would love to be reunited with their children, but they think of their children’s wellbeing the most, and would rather they be in US custody than forced back into the situation that they desperately left.
I assumed that your point was, hey, we’ve contacted the parents of 485 out of the 545 lost children. And they don’t want their kids back.
But every time I check out your sources, they say the same thing. They say there’s 485 kids whose parents want to leave them with sponsors/guardians in the U.S., then there’s another 545 kids whose parent’s can’t be reached at all. The way I see things, the 485 kids whose parents have been contacted already are completely unrelated to the topic at hand.
Now, I like reading news cites as much as the next fellow, but sometimes it’s easier to get it from the horse’s mouth. The straight dope is to be found in the court filing alluded to.
The case is Ms. L. v. U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement, No. 3:18-cv-00428 (S.D. Cal.). Document #556, a joint status report filed 10/20/2020 by plaintiffs (ACLU) and defendants (ICE).
It’s a joint status report which directly contradicts your assertion that DHS numbers disagree with the ACLU’s numbers. You can turn to page 6 (heading II.A.) for relevant numbers - page 7 for the text I am about to quote.
Normally I would spoiler, but I think this is highly relevant for the topic. Without further ado,
"A. Steering Committee Outreach to Sponsors and Parents of Children of Expanded Class Members
The government has provided eleven lists identifying 1,556 children of potential expanded class members. Plaintiffs have focused on reaching children whose membership in the class is not contested, and for whom the government has provided at least one phone number for a sponsor or for the child’s parent. [11]
Note 11
The eleven lists identify a total of 1,556 unique children, 1,134 of which have been confirmed by the government as being children of potential expanded class members. For 104 of these 1,134 children of potential class members, the government has not provided a phone number. Parents of the 422 children who have not been identified by the government as potential expanded class members have been categorized as “exclusions”. The Steering Committee also intends to reach individuals the government has categorized as excluded from the class, and Plaintiffs reserve the right to contest those exclusions.
As of October 20, the Steering Committee has attempted to reach the families of all these 1,030 children, and has successfully reached the parents (or their attorneys) of 485 children, an increase of 47 children since the last status report.
As a result, 545 children remain for whom the Steering Committee has not yet reached the separated parent, approximately two-thirds (66%) of whom are believed on the basis of the last information available from the government, to be in their respective countries of origin. For all of these families, the Steering Committee’s prior telephonic outreach attempts have not been successful in reaching the parent, and as further telephonic outreach attempts are not expected to result in successful contact with the separated parent, the Steering Committee has commenced or intends to commence additional efforts to locate the separated parent, as discussed below.
As reported in the last Joint Status Report, the Steering Committee’s additional efforts to locate separated parents have been hampered since March of this year due to COVID-19. However, as discussed below and as demonstrated in the increase in parents successfully contacted since the last Joint Status Report, limited on-the-ground efforts to find separated parents have re-commenced where conditions have permitted search activities to resume safely.
The Steering Committee has conducted and continues to conduct further outreach to families who have tentatively indicated that they are not satisfied with the current separation from their child and who may want their child returned to their country of origin. Following discussions with these parents, the Steering Committee has yet to identify any families that definitively seek to have their child returned to their respective countries of origin. Our outreach to these families continues and we will advise the government if and when any cases arisen in which a parent seeks to have their child returned, prior to bringing any such cases requiring further assistance to the attention of the Court. As noted above, the Steering Committee has experienced delays and anticipates further delays in being able to obtain and provide this information to the government as a result of the outbreak of the novel coronavirus and its continued spread across the United States and various Central American countries, but will continue to keep the government and the Court informed of its progress.
B. Steering Committee Progress Contacting “Unreachable” Parents
As noted in previous Joint Status Reports, the Steering Committee has commenced extensive efforts to locate the “unreachable” parents in their respective countries of origin, a group now comprised of the parents of 470 children (representing the subset of the parents of 545 children that the Steering Committee has not yet successfully contacted and for whom the Steering Committee does not expect telephonic outreach attempts to be successful). Over the last several months, the Steering Committee has continued its additional outreach initiatives in an attempt to reach these parents.
First, as previously reported, the Steering Committee has engaged in timeconsuming and arduous on-the-ground searches for parents in their respective countries of origin. Following a suspension due to the COVID-19 pandemic, limited physical on-the-ground searches for separated parents has now resumed where possible to do so while protecting the health of personnel working with the Steering Committee and members of vulnerable communities in separated parents’ home countries. As of October 20, defenders with Justice in Motion had commenced efforts to locate the “unreachable” parents of 502 children, and had successfully located the parents of 187 of those children. During this time, the Steering Committee has used contact information obtained by Justice in Motion’s defenders to communicate with, and ascertain the reunification preferences of, parents who had formerly been designated as “unreachable”. The Steering Committee intends to continue physical on-the-ground searches while it remains safe to do so, and will continue to update the Court on its progress, particularly if such searches must be limited or suspended again due to travel restrictions or health risks.
Also as previously reported, the Steering Committee has established toll-free telephone numbers in the United States, Guatemala, Honduras, Mexico and El Salvador to receive inbound phone calls from potential members of the expanded class. The Steering Committee has distributed this number both by email and U.S. Mail to a number of non-governmental organizations and other community organizations in the United States, who may be able to help us locate parents because they work in the communities these parents are likely to have contact with. In addition, the Steering Committee sent letters in Spanish and English to approximately 1,600 addresses provided by the government for the potential class members that the Steering Committee has not yet reached. These letters explain our role in this action and invite parents to contact the Steering Committee to call these toll-free numbers. The Steering Committee continues to monitor voicemail boxes reachable via these toll-free numbers.
Additionally, as previously reported, the Steering Committee has commenced broad-based media outreach efforts to publicize the toll-free phone numbers created by the Steering Committee in Spanish language media. As noted in the last several Joint Status Reports, outreach efforts to these third-party media outlets have not yet resulted in broad dissemination of the Steering Committee’s toll-free numbers, which the Steering Committee believes to be due in large part to the continuing effects of the novel coronavirus. While new inbound calls to the toll-free numbers have ceased, the Steering Committee is working to identify opportunities to broadly disseminate the toll-free numbers through various media to maximize visibility to potential Ms. L. class members, including most recently by seeking to collaborate on such media outreach initiatives with other non-profit organizations. The Steering Committee will continue to update the court on these efforts.
Finally, also as previously reported, the Steering Committee has been in communication with Seneca Family of Agencies (“Seneca”), a non-profit organization that has contracted with the Department of Health and Human Services to connect certain Ms. L. class members in the United States with mental health providers, pursuant to a preliminary injunction in Ms. J.P., et al. v. William P. Barr, et al. (2:18-cv-06081-JAK-SK, C.D. Cal.). The Steering Committee remains hopeful that this work will enable the Steering Committee to obtain contact information for currently unreachable parents in the Ms. L. class, and to locate such parents, particularly those believed to be within the United States and thus within the scope of Seneca’s work. The Steering Committee intends to use this information to conduct further outreach to class members to ascertain their preferences with respect to reunification.
For people who are calling for the President to appoint a task force to “take care of” this situation, I will point out that there is already a task force empowered by the court to fix the problem created by the government’s policies. I beleive that group is comprised of ACLU workers who fought ICE lawyers tooth and nail to get the spreadsheets and phone numbers for these kids. It would not be appropriate to replace them with a team of government suits.
‘Don’t want their child sent back to the same conditions which they already risked their lives to flee’ does not equal ‘don’t care or want to know where their child is’.
They may prefer having the child remain in the USA in the care of a relative/family friend who they trust. They may prefer being able to join the child in the USA. But if the child was in danger in the country of origin, why would any caring parent want the child returned to that danger?
Looks like DHS contradicts the ACLU claim and is of the opinion that the remaining children in the lawsuit came here unaccompanied:
"Department of Health and Human Services, the federal agency responsible for providing care to the migrant children, said, "All of the 545 minors referenced were appropriately discharged from [the Office of Refugee Resettlement’s] unaccompanied alien children program prior to June 23, 2018. "
(from the NBC News link)
It’s not a contradiction, and again we aren’t talking about an “ACLU claim” but a joint statement by ACLU and ICE. Don’t be mislead by the name, an unaccompanied alien child is an alien minor who has no parent or guardian in the U.S. now. It does not indicate whether the child was alone when they crossed the border.
The Unaccompanied Alien Children (UAC) Program is managed by the Office of Refugee Resettlement (ORR) within the Administration for Children and Families (ACF), an operational division of the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS).
Current Law -
By law, HHS has custody and must provide care for each UAC, defined as a child who has no lawful immigration status in the United States; has not attained 18 years of age; and, with respect to whom, there is no parent or legal guardian in the United States, or no parent or legal guardian in the United States available to provide care and physical custody. See 6 U.S.C.§ 279(g)(2)."
Boldface mine. DHS is saying that the 545 kids are out of their physical custody. We know from the legal filings that the 545 kids aren’t with their parents. It follows that they have all been placed in custody of someone else who isn’t their parent - a legal guardian, probably a relative. This matches what the ACLU lawyers say in the articles you linked.
If that’s the case then you gotta wonder why even the relatives can’t find the parents. Mexico and Central America are not remote deserted areas. Shouldn’t be that hard for the parents to find a way to get in contact with their relatives or DHS.
That’s a question I can’t answer. I’m not familiar with the matter but we might be talking distant relatives like third cousins or something. We do know that these parents aren’t answering their phones or returning calls, and that the government has no other contact information.
The report notes that COVID-19 is getting in the way of everything from media outreach to ground search operations. The parents might not even know that their kid is still alive.
I imagine most of the kids are from Mexico and Central America, but the actual plaintiff of the case was a woman from the Democratic Republic of Congo separated from her seven year old (reunited 2018).