Trump Administration Was Not Ready for Family Separation: NPR

People line up to the United States to begin the process of applying for the San Ysidro Hospital of entry in Tijuana, Mexico. Homeland Security's watchdog says immigration officials were not prepared to manage the consequences of its "zero tolerance" policy at the border.

Gregory Bull / AP

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Gregory Bull / AP

People line up to the United States to begin the process of applying for the San Ysidro Hospital of entry in Tijuana, Mexico. Homeland Security's watchdog says immigration officials were not prepared to manage the consequences of its "zero tolerance" policy at the border.

Gregory Bull / AP

The Department of Homeland Security was unprepared to implement the Trump administration's family separation policy – and then struggled to identify and reunify families when it was over.

That's about a report released today by the agency's internal watchdog. Government officials said the policy was needed to discourage illegal immigration. But President Trump abandoned it outrageously after 2600 children were separated from their parents.

The report from the DHS Office of the Inspector General echoes many of the complaints by immigrants' rights advocates. Here are three of its key findings.

Migrant children held beyond 3-day limit

When the administration's "zero tolerance" policy officially took effect in April, many parents who were suspected of crossing the border illegally were charged with a federal crime. That meant they could not be held in their custody.

By law, migrant children who are considered "unaccompanied" should be placed in the care of Health and Human Services within 72 hours, except in "exceptional circumstances."

But the OIG report found that migrant children were routinely held at Border Patrol facilities for longer. Many are held in metal cages designed for short-term detention. More than 800 children were held at Border Patrol facilities in the Rio Grande Valley and El Paso sectors, according to the report, with one child held for 25 days.

In a written reply, DHS said that the placement delays were in part to lack of placement options at HHS. "The care and transfer of unaccompanied alien children is a critical operational priority that is carefully and robustly managed," DHS said in a statement.

Long waits at ports of entry

Under the "zero tolerance" policy, the administration encourages migrants to present themselves at the same time, the OIG report found that US Customs and Border Protection is limiting the number of asylum-seekers it would be admitted through those ports under a known practice of metering.

"CBP managed the flow of people who could enter the world," the report concluded.

Homeland Security officials dispute that finding. DHS said that it was employing "tail management" practices at ports of entry, but not at any point in the relationship and that "zero tolerance" policy that led to family separations. The two are "separate and distinct," and according to the statement.

Lack of integrated records slowed reunification

The OIG report describes where parents have struggled to find each other.

The lack of integration between electronic record systems and CBP, Immigration and Customs Enforcement and HHS made it harder to identify and track parents and children, according to the report.

On June 23rd, DHS announced that it had "a central database" that allowed DHS and HHS to share information about the location of migrant parents and children. But the OIG report found "no evidence that such database exists."

Rather, the OIG found, the links to other documents and attaching them to emails.

"Each step of this manual is vulnerable to human error," the report concluded, "increasing the risk that a child could become lost in the system."

In its written response, DHS acknowledges that key electronic tracking systems can not communicate with each other. But despite that, "the government took exhaustive efforts" to reunify families "expeditiously," after it was ordered to do so by a federal judge.

According to the government's latest court filing, more than 130 children are still separated from their parents.