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The Trump Administration’s handling of asylum seekers trying to enter the US has left more than 2000 children in limbo at detention centres. Here is what we know so far about the state of the detained children.
- President Donald Trump ordered federal agencies on Thursday to begin reuniting immigrant families recently separated at the US-Mexico border.
- The Justice Department (directed by the White House) asked a district judge to modify a 1997 settlement that has been interpreted as setting the 20-day limit on detaining children who entered the country illegally, regardless of whether they entered with a parent. It also sought an exemption from state licensing requirements for federal facilities that house the children.
- What will happen with the more than 2300 children separated from their parents at the border in recent weeks remains unclear. Officials have said they are working to reunite families as soon as possible but have provided no definite answers on how that will happen.
- In the Texas border city of McAllen, federal prosecutors unexpectedly did not pursue charges against 17 immigrants. A federal prosecutor said “there was no prosecution sought” in light of Trump’s executive order ending the practice of separating families.
- It was unclear whether that meant the Trump administration was dropping its months-old “zero tolerance” policy of prosecuting all adults caught trying to enter the country illegally.
- The US military was asked by the government to get ready to house up to 20,000 unaccompanied immigrant children at military bases, Pentagon spokesman Lieutenant Colonel Jamie Davis said.
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