A federal judge in California ruled federal immigration officials must stop separating most immigrant parents from their children at the southern border and ordered families who have been separated to be reunified.
The order from U.S. District Judge Dana Sabraw came late Tuesday night in a lawsuit brought by the American Civil Liberties Union against the Trump administration over the family separations.
The ACLU filed the lawsuit on behalf of a mother from the Democratic Republic of Congo who came to the U.S. in November with her 6-year-old daughter. The two were initially separated after the woman sought asylum. They were reunited in March.
“This ruling is an enormous victory for parents and children who thought they may never see each other again. Tears will be flowing in detention centers across the country when the families learn they will be reunited,” Lee Gelernt, deputy director of the ACLU’s Immigrants’ Rights Project, said in a statement.
Sabraw issued a preliminary injunction ordering the administration to reunify parents with children under the age of 5 within 14 days. Parents with children over the age of 5 who have been split from one another must be reunified within 30 days, the order said.
Sabraw said in his ruling that the “unfolding events,” which includes the administration’s zero tolerance immigration policy, President Trump’s executive order, and a fact sheet from the Department of Homeland Security “serve to corroborate” the allegations detailed by the plaintiffs in the lawsuit.
“The facts set forth before the court portray reactive governance — responses to address a chaotic circumstance of the Government’s own making,” Sabraw said. “They belie measured and ordered governance, which is central to the concept of due process enshrined in our Constitution. This is particularly so in the treatment of migrants, many of whom are asylum seekers and small children.”
Under the Trump administration’s zero tolerance policy, implemented in May, all adult illegal border-crossers are referred for criminal prosecution. The policy has led to parents being separated from their children.
Trump signed an executive order last week meant to end the family separations. The order instructed Attorney General Jeff Sessions to ask a federal court to modify a 1997 settlement agreement to allow children to remain with their parents in detention through the duration of their court proceedings.
The Justice Department formally requested the court do so last week.
The Department of Health and Human Services said Tuesday it still has 2,000 immigrant children who were separated from their parents in its care.
