Trump Administration Shifts Responsibility for Reuniting Families to ACLU

What’s the story?

• As part of its “zero-tolerance” immigration policy, the Trump administration deported hundreds of unauthorized immigrant parents without their children. On Thursday, the Justice Department informed a federal judge that it’s the responsibility of the American Civil Liberties Union - not the federal government - to locate those deported fathers and mothers.

The DOJ’s argument

• In court filings, the DOJ wrote:

“[The ACLU] should use their considerable resources and their network of law firms, NGOs, volunteers, and others, together with the information that Defendants have provided (or will soon provide), to establish contact with possible class members in foreign countries."

• Justice Department lawyers added that it was the ACLU’s responsibility to also determine "whether each possible class member wishes to be reunified with his or her child, or whether he or she wishes to waive reunification.”

The ACLU’s argument

• The ACLU, however, insisted the Trump administration “must bear the ultimate burden of finding the parents."

"Not only was it the government's unconstitutional separation practice that led to this crisis, but the United States Government has far more resources than any group of NGOs (no matter how many NGOs and law firms are willing to try to help). Plaintiffs therefore hope that the Government will take significant and prompt steps to find the parents on their own."

• 572 children remain in the custody of DHS's Office of Refugee Resettlement as their parents aren’t available because of deportation, or are considered ineligible for reunification because they have a criminal record.

What do you think?

Who “must bear the ultimate burden of finding the parents”? Should the Trump administration have considered family reunification before they began separating families? Or is the ACLU, which brought the suit against the government, responsible for reuniting families? Hit Take Action and tell your reps, then share your thoughts below.

—Josh Herman

(Photo Credit: @NYCLU via Twitter)