WASHINGTON – The Biden government’s task force to bring together migrant families separated by the Trump administration will allow separated families “the option of being reunited in the United States or in their county of origin,” said Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas in Monday.
Mayorkas called the separation of thousands of migrant families under the Trump administration “the most powerful and moving example of the cruelty that has pervaded that government,” in a briefing at the White House.
Lawyers representing families in a federal lawsuit asked the Biden government to take such a step to allow parents who were separated from their children and then deported without them to return to the United States to reunite.
They argued that without special protections for these parents to return to the United States, they are forced to choose between bringing their children back to dangerous conditions in their home counties or staying separate.
Mayorkas also announced Michelle Brané as executive director of the task force, as NBC News previously reported. He said the task force will work with non-governmental organizations and also with the countries of El Salvador, Guatemala and Honduras.
Other benefits and protections that the task force will give to separated families include transportation, health and mental health services, as well as legal, career and educational services, without the costs being passed on to families.
A DHS spokesman said the task force would also consider siblings of children separated for reunification.
