Tomorrow is the day that children separated from their families at the border are supposed to be reunited, but it doesn't look like the Trump administration will meet that deadline.
As of July 23, they had only reunited or "appropriately discharged" less than half the separated children in custody. The
ACLU lays out the numbers from the court case they filed on behalf of the separated families.
On July 23, the Trump administration told the court that it had reunited or 'appropriately discharged' 1,187 of the 2,551 children ages five and older who were forcibly separated from their parents. The government has also reunited 58 out of 103 children who are under the age of five and whose reunions were required by the first deadline, July 10.
The government identified 1,634 class members who are eligible for reunification and are in various stages of the process. However, in the same federal court filing, the government has claimed that the separated children of 917 parents are either not eligible, or “not yet known to be eligible,” for reunification.
The ACLU article, which is definitely worth a read, also sums up more of the numbers and what's being done about them:
- 20 children under 5 years old have parents whose eligibility the government is challenging based on criminal history or parental fitness, and 64 children 5 years old and over.
- 260 parents have not been reunited because they're categorized as needing "further evaluation."
- 136 parents supposedly waived their right for unification, though it's not clear if they had legal representation to make sure they understood their choice and options.
- 37 children in custody have "not yet been matched" to a parent.
- 12 (estimated) parents with children under 5 years old have been deported
- 463 parents of children 5 and older may no longer be in the states.
- 900 parents have final orders of removal