US wants two years to identify migrant children separated from their families

The Trump administration wants up to two years to find children separated from their family at the border. The children, which could number in the thousands, are more difficult to locate than expected because they are no longer held by the government. The administration would gradually provide information on separated families to the American Civil Liberties Union, which has taken legal action to reunite families. "We are strongly opposed to a plan that could take up to two years to locate these families," said Lee Gelernt, the ACLU's principal attorney. "The government must make it a priority." In a document filed in court Friday night, the Justice Department said it would take at least a year to review about 47,000 cases of unaccompanied children . On June 26, 2018, US District Judge Dana Sabraw put an end to the practice of separating families. However, thousands more children could be separated since summer 2017, said the inspector general of the department, which states that the exact number is unknown.