Trump Admin Finally Provides Info to Help Reunite Migrant Families After Apparently Withholding It: LawyersPHONE HOME
Blake Montgomery Reporter
Published Dec. 02, 2020 10:40PM ET
Daniel Becerril/Reuters
Lawyers responsible for reuniting migrant families separated at the U.S.-Mexico border said in new court filings that Donald Trump’s administration has finally provided data that will be vital in helping bring the families back together after months of requests put to the federal government. The information on families in immigration court arrived from the Executive Office of Immigration Review within the Justice Department a week ago. “Among other things, the information includes phone numbers that had not previously been known,” the lawyers wrote. “Everyone's been asking whether the Trump administration has been helping to find these families. Not only have they not been helping but they have been withholding this data forever,” Lee Gelernt, deputy director of the ACLU Immigrants' Rights Project, was quoted saying by NBC News. A federal judge had asked the lawyers to reunite the family members of 666 migrant children that were separated by the Department of Homeland Security in 2017 and 2018, an act the judge ruled illegal. After months of work, the number of families that still must be reunited is down to 628. |
