Feds to miss reunification deadline for about half of border families

The government will miss Tuesday’s deadline for reuniting dozens of young immigrant children with their parents, a Justice Department lawyer said Monday — though the judge who put himself in charge of overseeing the process said there was still solid “progress.”

Of the 102 children under age 5 who were supposed to be reunited by Tuesday, the government says it should be able to connect at least 54 of them with their parents, Justice Department lawyer Sarah Fabian told the court Monday afternoon.

In every one of those cases the government will then immediately release the families who crossed the U.S. border illegally out into the communities, Ms. Fabian said, arguing their hands are tied by logistics.

Two other families have already been reunited.

The 46 children who won’t be reunited cover a host of different circumstances.

Three parents have serious criminal records, and three others turned out not to be parents. Nine of the children have parents who were already deported, and nine other parents were released and have disappeared. The government has struggled to track them down.

Other parents are still being held in criminal custody at the federal or state level, so children can’t be sent to them. And still others could be released once checks are completed on parents or other sponsors.

Judge Dana Sabraw, who ordered the Tuesday reunification deadline, said he was encouraged by the numbers and by the government’s push to get things done.

“This is real progress and I’m optimistic that many of these families will be reunited tomorrow and we’ll have a very clear understanding as to who has not been reunited, why not, and a time frame in place,” he said.

Ms. Fabian said some of the other tough cases could still be reunited tomorrow if Judge Sabraw orders the government to short-circuit its usual checks it makes before releasing children to sponsors in the U.S.

Under normal circumstances, the government said it would perform extensive checks on all those in the household where a child being released from federal custody would end up.

The American Civil Liberties Union, which is representing the children, urged the judge to order the process be sped up, saying the children need to be returned to parents as quickly as possible.

Lee Gelernt, the ACLU lawyer handling the case, said the government is taking the reunification demands seriously, though he said he thinks the government can do better than the 54 so far.

In particular, he said, parents who’ve already been released into the U.S. and disappeared could be found.

“We just don’t know how much effort the government has made to find released parents,” he said.

Judge Sabraw has inserted himself deeply into the Trump administration’s decision-making, ordering all children who had been separated as part of border enforcement to be reunited.

Children under 5 were supposed to be reunited by Tuesday, while children ages 5 to 17 must be reunited by July 26.

The government has already moved many of the parents to be closer to the dorms where their children are being held, so that they can be quickly reunited Tuesday. But because those locations aren’t close to the three family detention centers run by the government in Pennsylvania and Texas, the government has chosen to release the families immediately.

Mr. Gelernt said he’s worried the families will be released without any support. He’s asked for the government to share the locations so aid workers can be on hand to help out.

Ms. Fabian said she will try to comply, saying it was a worthy goal though the hectic nature of last-minute transfers could complicate the effort.