It's been a year now when more than 900 children, including babies and toddlers, were separated from their parents at the border in the year after a judge ordered the practice be sharply curtailed.
The American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) said that President Donald Trump administration is separating families over dubious allegations and minor transgressions including traffic offenses. It asked a judge to rule on whether the 911 separations from June 28, 2018, to June 29 of this year were justified.
The whole thing started in June 2018, when U.S. District Judge Dana Sabraw ordered that the practice of splitting up families at the border be halted except in limited circumstances, like threats to child safety. The judge left inpidual decisions to the administration's discretion.
"Since then, a parent was separated for having damaged property valued at $5," the ACLU said. A 1-year-old was separated after an official criticized her father for letting her sleep with a wet diaper.
"In another case, a 2-year-old Guatemalan girl was separated from her father after authorities examined her for a fever and diaper rash and found she was malnourished and underdeveloped," the ACLU said. The father, who came from an "extraordinarily impoverished community" rife with malnutrition, was accused of neglect.
"About 20% of the 911 children separated from in the year after the judge's order were under 5 years old," the ACLU noted.
Most parents went weeks without knowing where their children were, and some weren't even clear on why they had been separated. Only three children have been reunited with the parent with whom they traveled.
The separations occurred during an unprecedented surge of children from Central America that has overwhelmed U.S. authorities, most coming in families but many unaccompanied. Acting Customs and Border Protection Commissioner Mark Morgan recently told a Senate committee that the agency encountered more than 300,000 children since Oct. 1.
The ACLU, which based its findings on reports that the administration provided, asked Sabraw to order the government to justify separations over the last year and to clarify its criteria for doing so.
"It is shocking that the Trump administration continues to take babies from their parents," ACLU attorney Lee Gelernt said. "The administration must not be allowed to circumvent the court order over infractions like minor traffic violations."
"The government also took children from women whom they believed had gang ties but had been gang targets," the ACLU said.
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