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WASHINGTON – The Biden Administration’s Task Force on Reuniting Separated Migrant Families by the Trump Administration will allow separated families “to have the option of being reunited in the United States or in their home county.” Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas said on Monday.
Mayorkas called the separation of thousands of migrant families under the Trump administration “the most powerful and heartbreaking example of the cruelty that has taken place in this administration,” in a White House briefing.
Lawyers representing the families in a federal lawsuit had called on the Biden administration to make such a decision to allow parents separated from their children and then deported without them to return to the United States to reunite.
They argued that without special protection for these parents to return to the United States, they are forced to choose between returning their children in unsafe conditions to their home county or remaining separated.
Mayorkas also announced Michelle Brané as the executive director of the task force, as NBC News previously reported. He said the working group will work with non-governmental organizations as well as the countries of El Salvador, Guatemala and Honduras.
Other benefits and protections the task force will provide for separated families include transportation, health and mental health services, as well as legal, career and educational services, without the costs being passed on to families.
A DHS spokesperson said the task force will also consider siblings of separated children for reunification.
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