Hundreds of migrant children in the US are still separated from their families

Nearly 1,000 immigrant children who were separated from their families at the US-Mexico border have still not been reunited with their families due to a Trump administration policy. These figures have been released by the US Department of Homeland Security (DHS) on Thursday.

US President Joe Biden has promised to reunite all children separated from their families due to the policies of the previous Trump administration. Soon after assuming office in January 2021, he formed a task force for this task.

DHS says more than 600 children have been reunited with their families in the two years since the task force was established. But about 998 children are still living separated from their families. It added that the process of reuniting 148 of these children is in the next phase.

“We understand that our important work is far from over,” Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mairoukas said in a statement. “We reiterate our commitment to continue working to reunite other families affected by the previous cruel and inhumane policy,” he added.

Thousands of immigrant families, mostly from Central America, have been separated from each other by former President Donald Trump’s “zero tolerance” policy.

The policy, implemented in the spring of 2018, is an effort to prosecute all individuals who cross the border illegally into the United States. Because children could not be imprisoned with their parents or other family members, they were separated from their relatives. These children are under the supervision of ‘Health and Human Services’.

Political and religious leaders have widely criticized this policy of segregation, calling it inhumane. The American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) filed a case against him. The Trump administration suspended its implementation of this policy in June 2018.

The court ruled in favor of the ACLU. After which, before President Biden took office, the process of identifying and reuniting immigrant children who were separated with their families began.

Many immigrant families have also sued the US government for compensation for having their children separated from them.