The Trump administration oversaw the separation of more than 5,500 families – and the parents of more than 600 children have yet to be located. Defenders of immigrants want relief for these families, but they also want responsibility for Trump’s employees.
“If the administration is unsuccessful in taking steps to bring these families together and compensate for the damage done, it will be heard by the public in six months, in 12 months, in 18 months,” said Tom Jawetz, vice president for immigration policy from the Center for American Progress, a liberal think tank.
“This is something that needs to be resolved,” said Jawetz.
People close to the White House say that Biden and senior officials know that the task force is just the beginning. Biden officials, both privately and publicly, said they would commit political capital, energy and resources to finding the parents of children still separated, offering legal status and assistance to all affected families and pushing for changes to US immigration law to ensure that didn’t happen again.
Biden is also expected to announce an executive action focused on the resettlement and asylum of refugees on the US-Mexico border. His efforts to undo the policies of the Trump era will take time, as the former president has carried out over 400 immigration-related executive actions without Congressional participation.
Alejandro Mayorkas, chosen by Biden to lead the Department of Homeland Security, will oversee the task force, confirmed White House press secretary Jen Psaki on Friday. Putting Mayorkas – a DHS veteran and architect of the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals program – in charge is a clear sign that reunification will be a priority for the Biden government.
The deployment of the task force was originally scheduled for Friday, but was postponed because Senate Republicans dragged out the Mayorkas confirmation process, claiming that “there are a number of problems” with his appointment. A confirmation vote is scheduled for Monday afternoon, paving the way for Biden to announce the task force and a series of other immigration-related executive actions on Tuesday, said Psaki.
Republicans were quick to criticize Biden’s immigration agenda, with some arguing that it encourages more illegal migration and amounts to “open borders”. However, a large part of Biden’s immigration reform project is focused on “smart” border surveillance. Some conservatives and anti-immigration advocates have said the separation from the family is wrong, but argue that the parents have broken US law and put their children at risk.
The task force will include officials from DHS, the Department of Health and Human Services and the State Department, according to those familiar with the discussions.
The plight of migrant children is of particular interest to First Lady Jill Biden and her chief of staff, Ambassador Julissa Reynoso, who will “closely monitor” the federal reunification process, said Psaki on MSNBC “The Rachel Maddow Show” on Thursday night. Biden and Reynoso visited a migrant camp in Matamoros, Mexico in December 2019, added Psaki.
Bringing the 600 children together with their missing parents is just one piece of a very complicated puzzle, advocates for immigrants and lawyers said.
“We will be very disappointed if the [task force]… does not address the thousands of other families who have been separated and in need of help, ”said Lee Gelernt, deputy director of the ACLU’s National Immigrant Rights Project.
However, Gelernt and other supporters say they are so far optimistic that Biden’s task force will have a broader mandate than that.
“I hope that the Biden government wants to do everything it can to help these families and do as much as possible to remove the moral stain that has placed on our country,” said Gelernt, who represented separate families in the case of the ACLU.
Part of Biden’s announcement on Tuesday may include plans to allow families who were separated and later deported to return to the United States. Biden will also offer government resources to organizations that are already working on locating missing parents.
“I am confident that, in the end, we will find families,” said Gelernt, “but only the government can bring families together and give them legal status in the United States.”
The ACLU wants the Biden government to allow families separated by the Trump government to settle in the United States and give them some kind of legal status. This is a measure that Gelernt believes would be relatively easy to do because the Biden government has the power to “parole” families to the United States. ACLU also wants the government to create a fund to help families with basic needs, such as psychological counseling and medical care. Separating the family causes irreparable damage to children’s health in the short and long term, according to the American Academy of Pediatrics.
The Biden government, in a largely symbolic step, last week rescinded the Trump administration’s “zero tolerance” policy, which referred adults who illegally entered the U.S. with children to be prosecuted by the Department of Justice. The policy, first announced in April 2018, resulted in the separation of thousands of families, including those with young children. In June 2018, Trump signed an executive order to end this practice after widespread outrage. However, he never officially terminated the policy.
The task force should not deal with possible criminal investigations and cases against officials who were involved in implementing the policy. However, some lawyers have said they want to see Biden encourage the Justice Department to investigate and assess whether to take legal action.
Earlier this month, a report from the Office of the Inspector General of the Department of Justice concluded that then Attorney General Jeff Sessions and senior officials in the Department of Justice advanced with a “zero tolerance” policy, aware that it would forcibly divide families and were not prepared for the impact. DHS and HHS also issued similar reports describing the policy’s implementation and negative impact.
Meanwhile, progressives and defenders of immigrants are asking the Biden government to push for a more permanent legislative solution, repealing Section 1325 of Title 8 of the United States Code, which makes illegal entry into the United States a federal crime. This part of the United States immigration law – which received a lot of attention during the campaign thanks to Julián Castro – allowed a “zero tolerance” policy to be implemented. If revoked, illegal entry would still be a civil offense, which could require payment of a fine, but is less punitive.
Almost 40 Democrats, including Reps. Chuy García, Ayanna Pressley and Pramila Jayapal, last week it reintroduced legislation that would repeal Section 1325 and implement other measures to decriminalize illegal migration. But defenders and lawmakers who spoke to Biden officials say the former vice president’s team never endorsed his repeal.
“As America begins a new presidential administration,” said Jayapal in a statement in support of the project, “we must finally leave behind our country’s long history of criminalizing immigration and separating families.”