Congressional Hispanic Caucus (CHC) leaders have called for “a multi-agency meeting” featuring top administration officials who carried out Donald Trump’s family separation policy, writing in a letter that while they’ve been able to meet with some officials independently, their answers have indicated that departments failed to communicate about this barbaric policy’s implementation and only worsened an already horrific humanitarian disaster.
Under the “zero tolerance” policy, more than 2,800 children were stolen from families at the southern border. Families were sloppily torn apart by Customs and Border Protection, with parents sent to Immigration and Customs Enforcement custody, and their children to the Office of Refugee Resettlement, which is under Health and Human Services. A government watchdog report later found that the administration did this without tracking them, which has resulted in the torturous, prolonged detention of kids in abusive conditions.
“It is now clear,” said Representatives Joaquín Castro, Ruben Gallego, Nannette Barragán, Adriano Espaillat and Veronica Escobar, “that DHS and DOJ failed to properly communicate the launch of this harmful policy, DHS failed to track and identify all separated children and parents at the border, and HHS was given the arduous task of tracking and identifying as many separated children as possible.”
Accountability for this crime against humanity has been long overdue. Kids separated under the policy are still in U.S. custody, months after a federal judge’s deadline. That same judge is also currently deciding whether families separated at the border before the policy’s implementation should be tracked down and reunited, which could number in the thousands. That judge has said, however, that the administration bears responsibility for those kids.
“Enough with the finger pointing,” the legislators tweeted about their letter to DHS Security Secretary Kirstjen Nielsen, Attorney General William Barr, CBP Commissioner Kevin McAleenan, ICE acting Director Ronald Vitiello, and ORR acting Director Jonathan Hayes. “Federal agencies must accept responsibility for implementing Trump’s family separation policy.” Family separation remains a crisis.