Shortly after taking office, President Donald Trump enacted several immigration policies that changed many lives. Notably, the Trump administration began to separate immigrant children from their parents at the U.S.-Mexico border, a policy otherwise known as the “zero tolerance policy” or child separation. The zero tolerance policy started under a pilot program in 2017, and continued throughout 2018. Under this policy, the Department of Justice prosecuted all adult aliens apprehended for crossing the border illegally, with no exception given to asylum seekers or those with minor children. Many children were taken away from their parents before their parents could be deported. In total, it is estimated that approximately 5,500 families attempting to cross the southern border were separated.
According to a lawsuit filed by the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU), the parents of 545 children cannot be found. The ACLU, tasked with reuniting these families, is currently seeking damages “on behalf of the immigrant children and their parents cruelly and inhumanely separated from each other in Arizona and at other places along the United States southern border by the U.S government.”[1]
While some families or parents of the
separated children may prefer that their children remain in the United States
to avoid the prospect of returning to the country where they were fleeing
persecution, policies such as “zero tolerance” are still born out of
cruelty. Some may argue that the parents
put their children in this situation, this notion fails to recognize the
reasons migrants approach the U.S border. Most families leave their country of origin
because they are fleeing poverty, violence, or persecution, reasons that often
form the basis for asylum in the U.S. Nothing justifies what has been done
to these families by the Trump administration and ongoing litigation about restitution
and redressing of the harm done to these families will be ultimately decided by
the Courts.
[1] https://www.aclu.org/legal-document/aiil-v-sessions-complaint