Thousands more migrant children may have been separated from their parent or guardian — a number much higher than previously acknowledged, a new government watchdog said Thursday.
According to the Department of Health and Human Services’ Office of Inspector General, there was a “steep increase” in the numbers children separated in the summer of 2017 — even before the Trump administration went forward with its controversial border policy.
“The total number of children separated from a parent or guardian by immigration authorities is unknown,” said the IG, which added that HHS has “faced challenges in identifying separated children.” This means that it is unclear if the children separated from their parents or children at the border were ever reunited with their families because there was no federal judge order to reunify them.
The Justice Department announced its “zero tolerance” policy in April, which separated children from their parents or legal guardian after the adult or adults were referred to the Department of Homeland Security for prosecution for illegal entry into the U.S.
The children were then transferred into the custody of HHS because Border Patrol could only legally hold them for 72 hours without a parent or guardian.
Following an outcry, calling the separations inhumane, President Trump ordered the policy to end with an executive order on June 20.
There was also an ongoing lawsuit in which a judge ordered the government to reunite roughly 2,700 children removed from their parents’ custody. Most of those families were reunited within 30 days.
Though HHS devoted “[c]onsiderable resources to this effort,” the IG said, there were “significant challenges in identifying separated children, including the lack of an existing, integrated data system to track separated families across HHS and DHS and the complexity of determining which children should be considered separated.”
“We don’t have any information on those children who were released prior to the court order,” an official from the IG told reporters on a call Thursday. The IG is also reviewing other aspects of the family separations, including efforts to protect children from “harm and to provide needed physical and mental health services.”
