Even after the Trump administration said it would reunify families separated under the now-paused “zero tolerance” immigration policy, new data shows the number of children held in privately run shelters in Texas is still high.
Families Divided
President Donald Trump’s “zero tolerance” immigration policy drew sharp rebukes after it was announced in April 2018 — especially after children who had been separated from their parents started being placed in a tent city in Tornillo. Trump signed an executive order June 20 that would keep immigrant families together, but it’s unclear how — or if — families that have already been separated will be reunited. With support from the Pulitzer Center on Crisis Reporting, The Texas Tribune has been reporting on the issue from the Texas-Mexico border, Washington, D.C., and Austin. You can help by sending story tips to tips@texastribune.org.
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Families Divided
Detention center for immigrant children in West Texas will remain open through mid-September
The immigration detention facility for undocumented immigrant minors in Tornillo will remain open another month, officials confirmed Friday.
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Hours after deadline, federal government lays out plan for reuniting kids with deported parents
The plan places a heavy burden on the American Civil Liberties Union, the advocacy group that successfully took the government to court this year to order the reunifications.
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Families Divided
“It’s humiliating”: Released immigrants describe life with ankle monitors
The devices are a better option than detention, but they disrupt almost every aspect of daily life, from sleeping and exercising to buying groceries and getting a job, according to more than a dozen attorneys, immigrant advocates and Central American asylum-seekers.
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Families Divided
Feds sent immigrant kids to dangerous Texas youth facility, despite serious warning signs
Just as Texas stopped sending foster children to centers operated by one man, the U.S. government tossed him a new source of money: immigrant kids.
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Families Divided
ACLU sues Trump administration over decision to exclude most asylum-seekers fleeing domestic abuse, gang violence
“It’s clear the administration’s goal is to deny and deport as many people as possible, as quickly as possible,” said Jennifer Chang Newell, an attorney with the ACLU’s Immigrants’ Rights Project.
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Immigration “loophole” that Trump bemoaned returns after zero tolerance rollback
A head-spinning sequence of events appears to have put the Trump administration right where it started: running a “catch and release” immigration system in which families crossing the border illegally stay in the country as the government processes their asylum claims.
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Families Divided
The government hasn’t found 410 migrant parents deported without their kids
For every migrant parent federal officials fail to locate, U.S. District Judge Dana Sabraw said, “there will be a permanently orphaned child.”
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The Trump administration is making plans to detain more immigrants in Texas. Here’s where they would be held.
Several new facilities have already opened this summer, and the federal government has requested up to 15,500 beds at two Texas military bases.
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Families Divided
How can the federal government reunify kids with deported parents? First step: Find them.
Some 400 parents were sent back to their native countries without their children. As an official with the Immigrations and Customs Enforcement agency put it, “we don’t keep track of individuals once they’ve been deported to foreign countries.”