Congress tasked with keeping families together, despite Trump’s order
Jun 20, 2018, 4:15 PM | Updated: 4:27 pm
(AP Photo/Rick Bowmer)
PHOENIX — The issue of keeping families together and reuniting separated families has effectively been placed on Congress’ shoulders, despite President Donald Trump signing an executive order to halt his administration’s policy of separating families at the border.
According to BuzzFeed News, Homeland Security Secretary Kirstjen Nielsen told Republicans that the order would not lead to a permanent fix and “it is still up to Congress to fix the issue.”
The order also did not address the issue of reuniting families, meaning that thousands of kids will be left in limbo until a solution can be reached.
House Republicans met with Trump on Tuesday in an effort to put together a compromise bill that would keep immigrant children in detention indefinitely, but housed with their parents.
House Speaker Paul Ryan said the chamber would vote on two immigration bills on Thursday, but U.S. Rep. Paul Gosar told KTAR News 92.3 FM’s Arizona’s Morning News on Wednesday that he does not believe lawmakers have enough votes to pass either of them.
On the Senate side, separate bills have been introduced by both Republicans and Democrats to prevent the separation of families at the border.
Thirty-two Senate Democrats introduced the Keep Families Together Act earlier this month to prevent the Department of Homeland Security from taking children from their parents at the border.
U.S. Sen. Jeff Flake (R-Ariz.) was among the 26 Republican Senators who introduced a bill Wednesday in an effort to keep families together “while ensuring the integrity of our nation’s immigration laws.”
The Keep Families Together and Enforce the Law Act would require that children and their parents remain together during their legal proceedings. It would also ensure that families have access to suitable living accommodations, food and water, medical assistance and other necessary services during their detention.
U.S. Attorney General Jeff Sessions has carried out a “zero-tolerance” policy enacted in May that criminally prosecutes all adults caught crossing the border illegally.
Children can’t be jailed with their parents. Instead, after the adult is charged, children are held briefly by Homeland Security officials before being transferred to Health and Human Services, which operates more than 100 shelters for minors in 17 states.
The policy has led to more than 2,300 minors being separated from their families at the border from May 5 through June 9, according to the Department of Homeland Security.
But the Trump administration has no clear plan yet on how to reunite those children with their families.
“This policy is relatively new,” said Steven Wagner, an acting assistant secretary at the Department of Health and Human Services.
“We’re still working through the experience of reunifying kids with their parents after adjudication.”
Federal officials say there are some methods parents can use to try to find their children: hotlines to call and an email address for those seeking information. But advocates say it’s not that simple.
In a courtroom near the Rio Grande, lawyer Efren Olivares and his team with the Texas Civil Rights Project frantically scribble down children’s names, birthdates and other details from handcuffed men and women waiting for court to begin. There are sometimes 80 of them in the same hearing.
The Texas Civil Rights Project works to document the separations in the hopes of helping them reunite with the children.
They have one hour to collect as much information as they can before the hearing begins. The immigrants plead guilty to illegally entering the U.S., and they are typically sent either to jail or directly to an immigration detention center. At this point, lawyers with the civil rights group often lose access to the detainees.
“If we don’t get that information, then there’s no way of knowing that child was separated,” Olivares said. “No one else but the government will know that the separation happened if we don’t document it there.”
The Associated Press contributed to this report.