Is This Really The End Of Family Separation?

WAMU 88.5

Published June 26, 2018 at 10:06 AM EDT

Dozens of women, men and their children, many fleeing poverty and violence in Honduras, Guatemala and El Salvador, arrive at a bus station following release from Customs and Border Protection on June 23, 2018 in McAllen, Texas.

The Trump administration has now released a plan to reunite the thousands of parents and children who were separated at the border due to the president’s “zero tolerance” immigration policy.

The Department of Homeland Security said in a fact sheet that “the United States government knows the location of all children in its custody and is working to reunite them with their families.” However, DHS provided no timeline for when families might be brought back together.

As of June 23, Customs and Border Protection said they had reunited 522 children with their parents.

McClatchy reports that part of the proposed Trump plan could involve a very difficult choice for families caught crossing the border illegally. They will choose between remaining “detained with their child in a large tent city or give up custody of their child, at least temporarily.”

In a detention facility outside of Houston, Central American men separated from their children are being told that they can reunite with them at the airport if they sign a voluntary deportation order, The Texas Tribune also reported.

Over the weekend, the president tweeted that he’d prefer to end due process for migrants coming over the border illegally.

We cannot allow all of these people to invade our Country. When somebody comes in, we must immediately, with no Judges or Court Cases, bring them back from where they came. Our system is a mockery to good immigration policy and Law and Order. Most children come without parents…

— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) June 24, 2018

….Our Immigration policy, laughed at all over the world, is very unfair to all of those people who have gone through the system legally and are waiting on line for years! Immigration must be based on merit – we need people who will help to Make America Great Again!

— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) June 24, 2018

Is this really the end of family separation? And what will come of the Congressional efforts toward immigration policy overhaul?

GUESTS

Jeff Merkley, US Senator, Democrat of Oregon

Julián Aguilar, Immigration and border security reporter for the Texas Tribune

Mimi Marziani, President, Texas Civil Rights Project; @MimiMarziani

Mark Greenberg, Senior fellow, Migration Policy Institute. From 2009-17 served in the Administration for Children and Families (ACF) in the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services

For more, visit https://the1a.org.