Parents who were separated from their children at the border prior to the Trump administration’s June 20 order to keep family units together are now taking legal action to be reunited with their kids.
Three women, each of whom arrived between ports of entry on the southern border with their daughters from Central America, filed a complaint in the U.S. District Court for the Central District in California through attorneys from Public Counsel and Sidley Austin LLP Tuesday asking all parents be reunited with their children, given mental health services to deal with the trauma of being separated, and be released from federal custody.
[Also read: Trump administration could be holding 30,000 border kids by August, officials say]
“This complaint follows directly from the government’s extraordinary decision to separate asylum seeking parents from their children in circumstances that traumatize both parent and child,” Amy Lally, partner with Sidley Austin LLP, said in a statement. “It is critical that parents join their children both by being released together from detention and in court. Through this complaint we are trying to ensure that they receive the mental health services they need to somehow begin to recover from this horrific ordeal.”
The three plaintiffs are being held in detention in California and Washington while their children are in Arizona and Texas. It’s not clear if the children, who would have gone from the custody of U.S. Customs and Border Protection to the Department of Health and Human Services’ Administration for Children and Families, have been placed with relatives or family friends in the U.S. or are still being held by the agency.
The complaint states the children should have been placed already, though the mothers have stated they do not know where their kids are and cannot contact them, prompting emotional harm.
“The mothers and children were detained, then separated in a chaotic and cruel way, where the mothers received little or no information about their children’s whereabouts or well-being and no explanation as to whether or when they would see their children again,” the plaintiffs state in a press release.
“Every minute that these children continue to be held in detention and separated from their parents, the emotional harm builds,” said Mark Rosenbaum, director of Public Counsel Opportunity Under Law. “We are asking the court to demand that the government address the harm they have deliberately inflicted, following mental health best practices, and immediately release from detention all separated families and provide appropriate care to address the harmful trauma cause by this inhumane detention.”
The women are also suing to be released with their children while they await decisions on their asylum applications.
