The process of reuniting undocumented migrant families separated by the U.S. government at the southern border is nearly finished, a federal judge said Friday.
“It’s heading clearly in the right direction, and I think we’re approaching the end of reunification,” U.S. District Judge Dana Sabraw of the Southern District of California said in a telephone status hearing, CNN reports. “By all accounts, it’s moving very successfully.”
The positive assessment comes nearly four months after the July 26 deadline Sabraw set in June. The Trump administration had asked for an extension, but was denied its request. On the day of the deadline, the administration announced it had reunited 1,442 of the 2,551 children detained without their parents.
In August, Sabraw condemned the Trump administration’s effort as being too slow, calling it “unacceptable at this point.”
As of Sept. 6, more than 400 children were still waiting to be reunited with their parents.
The separation of families at the U.S.-Mexico border resulted from President Trump’s “zero tolerance” immigration policy adopted in May. Trump signed an executive order ending family separation in June, but 171 children from separated families still remain in the custody of U.S. immigration officials, CNN reported Thursday.
Most of those kids — 146 — will not be reunited with their parents for a variety of reasons. In some cases, officials said the parents declined reunification, and in others, the parents have been deemed a danger, according to a federal court filing in the American Civil Liberties Union lawsuit.
A special review report released by the Homeland Security Department’s inspector general in late September noted that DHS was “not fully prepared” for the rollout of the “zero tolerance” policy. The report also said the agency “struggled to identify, track, and reunify” separated families “due to limitations with its information technology systems, including a lack of integration between systems” and failed to communicate the repercussions of the policy to incoming families.
