Judge Orders Trump Administration to Hand Over Information on Deported Migrant Parents: 'The Government Is at Fault'

Judge Dana Sabraw has ordered the Trump administration to hand over “detailed information,” NBC News reports, on the parents of hundreds of kidnapped migrant children who continue to remain under U.S. custody following his July 26 family reunification deadline. “The government is at fault for losing several hundred parents in the process,” he said, “and that’s where we have to go next.”

Despite being under a court order, the administration failed to reunite 700 kids with their parents, taking upon itself to deem their parents “ineligible” for reunification. But the truth is that the majority of these kids were not back in their parents’ arms on July 26 because they had already been deported. Others were deemed “ineligible” due to alleged criminal records, while others were reportedly coerced or mislead into deportation. 

The administration has been too secretive about this “ineligibility” process, but what is clear is that the administration yet again failed to meet a reunification deadline, despite trying to declare mission accomplished—and they are in no way off the hook. Reuniting children with deported parents is “the most pressing group,” Sabraw said, “and all efforts have to be made to identify and locate those parents and then to reunify as quickly as possible.”

According to Politico, “the judge said he will require weekly status reports every Thursday and telephonic conferences every Friday until the missing parents are located and other issues are resolved,” which the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) has offered to assist with by providing “pro-bono attorneys to help track down parents whose whereabouts are unknown and provide them legal counsel.”

It should truly be the federal government that’s funding every penny toward ending the crisis it created. This administration has been a mixture of incompetence and intentional evil, reuniting families only because of a court order, and then declaring hundreds of other parents “ineligible” for reunification just as it was on track to miss yet another reunification deadline. What a coincidence, and what a crock of shit. 

Thanks to yet another move from Sabraw, these children are getting closer to where they’re supposed to be, in the loving arms of their parents. “The judge’s order requiring the government to provide us with information about missing or deported parents,” said Lee Gelernt of the ACLU, “leaves no doubt that the court expects the remaining reunifications to get done promptly.”