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A California judge on Friday ordered the US government to present by Saturday night a list of children under five separated from their parents at the border, according to a government official.
The Trump administration had asked Judge Dana Sabraw a deadline to reunite the families of migrants arrested crossing the border with Mexico and separated, explaining lack of time to confirm identities, according to court documents released Friday.
The judge of San Diego had ordered the June 26 to reunite under-five children under 14 days with their parents, and within 30 days for others, lambasting the "zero tolerance" policy on immigration that ordered the systematic arrest and prosecution of all illegal immigrants crossing the border.
More than 2,300 children, of whom about 100 were under the age of five, had been separated from their families in which weeks and housed in reception centers run by the Ministry of Health (HHS).
Several hundred of them have already found their parents but the government is struggling to keep up. HHS admitted Thursday that it needed DNA testing and expedited procedures to identify children and their parents.
"The judge made it clear that he was not going to let the Trump administration drag its feet to get together children with their parents, "said Lee Gelernt, deputy director of the ACLU Migrant Rights Project, the civil rights organization behind the injunction against the immigration police (ICE)
According to a government official, the judge has not formally ruled out extending the time limit, and another hearing will take place on Monday.
In total, some 11,800 migrant minors are currently detained by the US authorities after crossing the border illegally, but 80% of them are teenagers who arrived alone.
In his application to the San Diego court, the DOJ badured that the HHS "works of arra to reduce the burden of kinship confirmation and speed up DNA testing. "
" In some cases, however, "says DOJ," this is not a conclusive procedure for establishing kinship and study of available documents may be necessary. "
This procedure may also take time if parents have been released from detention centers. "In these cases, it may be more difficult to reunite certain families within the time frame of the court," the ministry argued.
The Department of Justice also asked the court to delete a paragraph from the decision of 26 June, which prohibits the detention of migrants without their children because it could be interpreted as a request for release of parents who would not have found their children past the deadline.
Faced with the outcry created by images of young children in tears , President Donald Trump had ended by decree on June 20 to the separations. He is now calling Congress to reform the immigration laws.
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