The Biden administration has reunified more than 500 migrant families separated at the southern border under former President Donald Trump, it revealed.
The news came through a statement released Friday by Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas, who celebrated the family reunifications as a “significant milestone that reflects the tireless dedication of the many public servants.” Mayorkas has led the family reunification effort, a major tenet of an otherwise vague set of immigration policies by the Biden administration, for nearly two years now.
BIDEN REMAINS IMPERVIOUS TO POLITICAL PRESSURE ON SOUTHERN BORDER
“Five hundred is a really important milestone. Obviously, the first step for these families is that physical reunification and going through that process,” Michelle Brane, executive director of the administration’s Family Reunification Task Force, told the Hill. “Those are 500 individual children that are now with their parents.”
“While the Department of Homeland Security and the Task Force take great pride in this accomplishment, we also know that this important work isn’t finished,” Mayorkas, who is tasked with reuniting the more than 1,000 children who remain separated from their parents as a result of the Trump administration’s 2017 “zero tolerance” policy, said in a statement Friday.
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The DHS secretary went on to reveal that the task force is in the process of reunifying nearly 200 children with their parents, as well as reach out to formerly separated families to notify them of available mental health resources.
As part of its “zero-tolerance” immigration policy, the Trump administration began separating children and parents caught crossing the US border illegally in 2017 in an effort to deter migration. Immigrant rights groups and the public alike began expressing their dismay at the policy after it became publicized in 2018, with backlash growing so intense that the then-president signed an executive order ending the policy.
