… Joe Biden made reunification a part of his 2020 campaign for president and, upon taking office, instantiated a task force that aimed to figure out how to get kids back to their families.
…
Last month, the task force published its most recent set of data on the reunification efforts. More than 3,200 children have been reunited with their families, about 800 of them thanks to the task force’s work. An additional 1,400, though, have not been — at least through the auspices of the task force. Of the 1,400, about 300 are either in the process of being reunified or have had their families contacted.
…
According to the most recent task force data, the families of more than 1,000 kids taken away at the border have not had the opportunity to see who those children have become.
Also from that article:
…
As he seeks reelection to the presidency, Donald Trump has again focused on immigration as an issue and pledged a hard-line approach. Speaking on CNN last year, he celebrated the effects of the policy.
“It stopped people from coming by the hundreds of thousands,” he said, “because when they hear ‘family separation,’ they say, ‘Well, we better not go.’ And they didn’t go.”
…
I think Biden missed a big political opportunity on this issue - he could have kept it in headlines with periodic press events, with updates and (in particular) big pictures of the faces of the missing children.
Something like “last week we found three of the Trump orphans missing and reunited them with their parents” [show pictures of the family reuniting], “800 Trump orphans remain missing, and today we’re highlighting these fifteen children [show their faces] and asking for help from around the world - if you’ve seen them please contact…”
I agree. This is an issue that could have pushed many fence-sitters off the fence. Not the rabid MAGAts, of course, because I’m sure they’d love to see even more hardships inflicted on uppity furriners who think they’re good enough to come here and be ‘Murricans. (Like the MAGAts’ grandparents and great-grandparents. )
Maybe, but they should have tried. ISTM they’re taking it seriously as a humanitarian issue (which is commendable) but not as much as a political issue.
This could have been cool. Republicans are so damn good at these short labels. I’d love to see the name “Trump” associated with the word “orphans,” because it can’t possibly have any positive connotations. And it hits people on an emotional level.
Maybe it’s not too late. If enough people use it on social media whenever the topic comes up, maybe Biden will start using it, too.
Thank you for the update, I cry for those kids. That was the eye opening issue for me that had me change my opinion about Trump from a republican who held views many that I disagreed with, to no this is not political at all but a being of evil itself.
I think there is a lot of potential liability. For one thing, it sounds like they haven’t been nearly as successful as one would like. Look at all the kids they have failed to reunite.
Second, once you make political hay out of a child, you sort of own that. Like, I bet some of those parents are abusive, just on numbers. So now they gave a kid back to an abuser. Some may be an error: they gave the kid back to a non-custodial parent, or someone posing as a parent. And I’m sure some of those families are still living here in a state of ambigious documentation. What if they commit a crime? What if a reunified kid commits a crime? (Again, its a numbers game).
Im so glad they are doing the right thing regardless of political implications, and I can see why keeping it apolitical seems well advised.
I tend to agree, but it should be one of many things Biden points out (in commercials, debates, and speeches) as “this will happen again if you don’t vote for me.”
I agree with everything in this post. This is a double-edged sword for Biden. He opens himself up to all these questions, as well as more broadly his Administration’s policies on the southern border. The border is probably Biden’s biggest political vulnerability. He certainly doesn’t want to spend time talking about it.
)