The Department of Homeland Security announced on Thursday that 100 children, mostly coming from Central America, were reunited with families under a Biden Administration reunification effort.
This effort was launched in Biden’s first day in office when he issued an executive order to reunite separated families at the U.S- Mexico border under Trump’s administration. The initiative to reunite families that were separated under Trump's Zero-Tolerance border policy made progress entering the end of its first year. About 350 more unifications are in progress following enhancements made to the program.
Factors such a the number of cases, inadequate or missing records on the separated families have created complications for the administration's Family Reunification Task Force. Many parents in remote Central American communities have encountered challenges, or have been unable to locate or retrieve their children.
The Biden administration partnered with the Unternational Organization for Migration and announced in September the reunification of 50 families. According to the Task Force, progress has been made in contacting separated families and providing them with information about the reunification process. A total of 183 people have registered through Juntos.gov or Together.gov, a web portal for families to work through the unification process.
The Trump administration established it's "Zero-Tolerance" policy in 2018 with the goal criminaly prosecute 100 percent of migrants caught illegally crossing the U.S-Mexico border. Through this, about 5,500 children were forcibly removed from their parents.
The Task Force's latest progress report shows there are 1,703 children who have been reunited to the Task Force's knowledge and there are 206 children who are in the process of reunification.
"While the number of family reunifications continues to be lower than what the Task Force projected, we are optimistic that continued outreach and improvement of support services will be the key solutions to break the barriers that are preventing parents from coming forward to reunite with their children," The Task Force wrote in a progress report.
Migrants were faced with criminal prosecution under Trump's "Zero-Tolerance policy", even when they presented themselves to authorities seeking asylum as permitted under the law. A lawsuit was filed by the American Civil Liberties Union in response for the program, but the practice came to an end in June 2018 before a judge ordered policy to cease.
