Democratic lawmakers demand answers from DHS, HHS secretaries about separated children
A group of Democratic lawmakers from Maryland is demanding answers from Department of Homeland Security (DHS) Secretary Kirstjen Nielsen and Health and Human Services (HHS) Secretary Alex Azar regarding the Trump administration’s abusive child separation policy, and how it intends to reunite families split up at the U.S.-Mexico border.
The letter, sent Thursday and signed by all of Maryland’s Democratic representatives and senators, including Rep. Anthony Brown, Democratic Whip Steny Hoyer, and Sens. Ben Cardin and Chris Van Hollen, requested more information about the initial separation process, and the most up-to-date figures on how many children have been removed from their parents and placed under DHS or HHS care. It also asked the agencies to provide information about the well-being of those children, and how exactly they plan to locate each child’s family.
“It is our understanding that children have been placed in as many as one hundred different facilities in eleven different states,” the legislators wrote. “We find it troubling that these children are being dispersed across the country seemingly haphazardly and without a clear process in place for future reunification with their parents or other family members.”
The letter closely resembles another letter delivered earlier this week to the same pair of cabinet officials, as well as Attorney General Jeff Sessions. The first letter was signed by more than 20 House Democrats, including Hoyer and the Congressional Hispanic Caucus.
The Maryland legislators also expressed concern about the two agencies’ lack of transparency in reporting accurate intake statistics to the public, as well as reports that many of the centers to which children have been taken have histories of abuse or mismanagement.
“We are concerned that officials are declining to disclose even basic information about these contracted detention facilities,” they wrote. “Members of Congress and the American people have a right to know more about how these children are being cared for and where the reunification process stands.”
The letter, emailed to ThinkProgress on Thursday afternoon, posed a series of 13 questions, including, when, after April 6, 2018, Maryland state agencies were contacted to provide care for children separated from their parents; which private facilities in the state have received contracts to detain those children; and whether migrant parents have also been transferred to Maryland facilities.
It also requested answers regarding the number of children being held in the state; the ages and location of those children and whether they’re receiving adequate care, education, and food; and the “anticipated length of stay for each child.”
The legislators also demanded details on the plan to reunite children with their parents and how the process will unfold, as both HHS and DHS have been largely silent on the matter so far.
The Trump administration’s plan is to reunite immigrant parents and kids …eventually
According to HHS officials, at least 2,053 children have been separated from their parents and placed the Office of Refugee Resettlement’s (ORR) care, under the Trump administration’s “zero-tolerance” immigration policy, which was announced in April and refers anyone detained at the U.S.-Mexico border for prosecution.
President Trump last week signed an executive order supposedly halting the family separation practice that he himself implemented, replacing it with indefinite family detention. A federal judge in San Diego on Tuesday subsequently issued a preliminary injunction forcing the government to reunite separated children with their parents within 30 days, or within 14 days for children under the age of 5. Those children — some of whom are as young as 3 months old — are currently being held in separate “tender age” immigration prison camps.
In their letter Thursday, the Democratic lawmakers argued that it was the responsibility of DHS and HHS to ensure the administration was in full compliance with that court order.
“Now that the administration has purportedly halted its practice of separating families, it is the duty of the Department of Homeland Security, Department of Health and Human Services, and all coordinating agencies — federal and state — to assist in the reunification of these families,” they wrote.
It’s unclear how the Trump administration plans to comply with current laws banning detention facilities from holding children for longer than 30 days, once they’re reunited with their parents. Some have suggested the president may be seeking a work-around to those existing laws, which could empower officials to hold families in immigration prisons indefinitely.