More than a month after a court deadline passed for the Trump administration to reunite families split at the border, more than 400 children are still in government-funded shelters without their migrant parents.
According to court papers filed Thursday night, 416 children, 14 of whom are younger than 5, remain in care where the parent is either not eligible to be reunified with his or her child, or the parent is not in the United States.
The reunification deadline was July 26.
[Related: Trump admin says it met judge-imposed deadline to reunite migrant families]
Parents of 304 of the children in custody are outside of the U.S., the court documents show.
The court documents also show that another 57 children are still in government care where further review showed they were not separated from their parents by the Department of Homeland Security.
The Homeland Security and Health and Human Services Departments proposed changes on Thursday that would bypass limits on the government’s ability to hold minors in immigration jails.
The plan involves withdrawing from the Flores Settlement Agreement, a consent decree from 1997 that shapes detention standards for underage migrants.
The U.S. District Court Judge who oversees the agreement, Dolly Gee, has previously rejected attempts to extend the amount of time migrant children can be held with their parents. The current limit is 20 days.
In the proposal, DHS and HHS say the administration would issue new regulations that would still “satisfy the basic purpose” of the Flores Settlement Agreement.
“The rule would satisfy the basic purpose of the FSA in ensuring that all juveniles in the government’s custody are treated with dignity, respect, and special concern for their particular vulnerability as minors, while doing so in a manner that is workable in light of subsequent changes,” the proposal states.
The proposal comes a few months after the Trump administration looked to stop increases in illegal immigration by implementing a zero-tolerance policy that resulted in an upsurge in children being separated from their parents when entering the U.S. illegally.
