By: Shamim E. Butt-Garcia
Introduction
The United States’ immigration policy has long been a complex, polarizing issue for Americans. Discussions regarding immigration tend to emphasize notions of security, sovereignty, and belonging. These discussions often fail to recognize the humanity of migrants and the socioeconomic forces that drive them to the United States. Rhetoric towards migrants in the United States became increasingly xenophobic, nativist, and dehumanizing as the former President of the United States, Donald J. Trump, repeatedly vilified migrants as violent criminals.[1] As damning as President Trump’s comments were in public, they were decidedly more violent in private. In meetings with his political aides, it is reported that he spoke of fortifying the border wall with a water-filled trench, stocked with snakes or alligators; electrifying the border wall; and adding spikes that could pierce human flesh.[2] Trump even suggested that migrants be shot if they throw rocks at U.S. officials, and after learning that this would be illegal, he suggested that migrants be shot in their legs to slow them down.[3] Over the course of his presidency, Trump used bigoted and vicious language to stoke fear and garner support from his base. The cruelty of Trump’s words transcended into his policies. He took a hardline approach to immigration policy by expanding enforcement at the U.S.-Mexico border and made reducing undocumented immigration a top priority for his administration.[4] Trump was committed to fulfilling his campaign promises which largely emphasized securing the southwest border and protecting American jobs, no matter the human cost.[5] The Trump Administration’s immigration policies violated the rights of migrants and inflicted irreversible psychological damage on the people it impacted. This paper will focus on the Trump Administration’s family separation policy—beginning with a brief contextualization of migration patterns in recent history, a brief legal history that examines the implications of a family separation policy, an analysis of the policy in practice, and then examining the psychological effects of family separation on migrants. This paper concludes with recommendations for a way forward as the Biden Administration grapples with the surge in migration at the U.S.-Mexico border.
A Shift in Migration Demographics
The demographic of migrants entering the U.S. is changing in many ways. In the last two decades, migration to the United States from the Northern Triangle (Honduras, Guatemala, and El Salvador) grew exponentially.[6] A common misconception—which was promoted by the rhetoric of President Trump—is that the majority of migrants entering the United States are Mexican, when in recent years Mexican migration to the U.S. actually decreased. According to the Pew Research Center, from 2007 to 2015, the number of migrants in the United States from the Northern Triangle rose by 25%, while the number of Mexican migrants decreased by 6%.[7] According to a Congressional Research Service report from 2019, families migrating from the Northern Triangle “have made up an increasing share of the migrants seeking admission to the United States at the U.S.-Mexico border.”[8] In 2019, migrants from the Northern Triangle accounted for about 70% of people apprehended at the southwest border.[9] While earlier migrants apprehended at the U.S.-Mexico border were predominantly single, adult males from Mexico, the majority of apprehended migrants today are families and unaccompanied children from the Northern Triangle.[10] In 2019, family units made up 60% of unauthorized border crossings along the southwest border.[11]
Both domestic-level factors in their countries of origin and regional factors drive migration from the Northern Triangle.[12] These factors include weak institutions, widespread government-level corruption, chronic poverty, rising levels of crime, gang and drug-related violence, drug-trafficking, low levels of confidence in government institutions, climate change, economic and educational opportunities in the U.S., and desires to reunify with family members in the U.S.[13] It’s important to recognize that many of the drivers of migration are interrelated and often reinforce one another.[14] In order to receive asylum, foreign nationals must prove that they are eligible for asylum or refugee status under a very narrow definition. Under U.S. law, a “refugee” is any person who is “unable or unwilling to return to his or her home country because of past persecution or a well-founded fear of future persecution based on one of five protected grounds (race, religion, nationality, membership in a particular social group, or political opinion).”[15] The broad range of factors that drive migrants to leave their home countries do not always fit squarely in that definition, making asylum in the U.S. extremely elusive.
A Closer Look at the Flores Settlement Agreement
From 2009 to 2014, the number of apprehended unaccompanied minors increased from nearly 20,000 to more than 68,000, resulting in an unprecedented humanitarian crisis at the U.S.-Mexico border.[16] As the Obama Administration struggled to cope with the surge in unaccompanied minors, they resurrected the previous administration’s practice of detaining migrant families in detention centers with horrifying conditions.[17] The Obama Administration justified their policy by claiming it was a deterrence to future immigration and that it protected against flight-risk, but this argument did not hold up in court.[18] In July 2015, U.S. Federal District Court Judge Dolly Gee ruled “that the Obama Administration’s long-term detention of children and their mothers who were apprehended crossing the border illegally violated the longstanding Flores Settlement Agreement (FSA) and that the families should be released immediately.”[19] Judge Gee further ruled that if a parent was detained with their child, the parent and child should be released (provided that they were not a flight or security risk).[20] Judge Gee’s ruling is based on a key agreement that is highly relevant to the issue of family separations—the Flores Settlement Agreement (FSA) of 1997. The FSA outlines “critical protections regarding the care, custody, and release of immigrant children who are in federal custody.”[21] It is a binding contract that establishes basic standards of care for all immigrant children (regardless of accompanied or unaccompanied status).[22] The FSA requires that facilities where minors are held will provide “access to toilets and sinks, drinking water and food as appropriate, medical assistance if the minor is in need of emergency services, adequate temperature control and ventilation, adequate supervision to protect minors from others, and contact with family members who were arrested with minor.”[23] The FSA also outlines clear guidance for the release of minors. When minors are released, they should be placed in the following order of preference: with a parent; legal guardian; adult relative that is an immediate family member; an adult or entity designated by the parent or legal guardian; a licensed program; or an individual for entity seeking custody (this last clause is a last-resort option, when there is no likely alternative to detention and family reunification does not seem possible).[24] When children cannot be released with a parent (e.g. due to circumstances such as criminal detainment), children are often considered as “unaccompanied children and referred to the Office of Refugee Resettlement (ORR).”[25] Per the Flores Agreement, officials are required to place unaccompanied children in non-secure facilities run by agencies licensed for childcare.[26] In its entirety, the FSA is quite comprehensive. It includes a clause on family reunification which says that upon taking a minor into custody, officials should promptly reunite the minor with his/or her family, and that such efforts should continue as long as the minor is in custody and that these efforts should be recorded by officials.[27]
Though detention of migrant families did not begin with the Trump Administration, President Trump built on pre-existing practices and went to great lengths to actively criminalize migrants and strip them of their human rights. In September 2019, the Trump Administration moved to withdraw from the FSA, calling the contract a loophole that “has been exploited by criminal cartels to smuggle children across the United States Southern Border.” Advocates recognize the FSA as a lifesaving standard that protects the universal rights of migrant children.[28] In response to the Trump Administration’s court challenges, Judge Gee issued a permanent injunction blocking the government from expanding its ability to detain migrant children for indefinite periods of time.[29] Judge Gee noted that the FSA is a binding contract and constant decree, and as such, “defendants cannot simply ignore the dictates of the consent decree merely because they no longer agree with its approach as a matter of policy.” In order to seek relief from the FSA, the U.S. government would have to demonstrate that a change in law or facts renders compliance illegal, impossible, or inequitable or through a law change via Congressional action.[30]
The Evolution of “Zero Tolerance” during the Trump Administration
On January 25, 2017, President Trump signed Executive Order 13767 “Border Security and Immigration Enforcement Improvements.” This executive order outlined a broad, hardline approach to immigration enforcement. The stated purpose of Executive Order 13767 is “to direct executive departments and agencies to deploy all lawful means to secure the Nation’s southern border, to prevent further illegal immigration into the United States, and to repatriate illegal aliens swiftly, consistently, and humanely.” Key policy actions in this executive order include: the construction of a physical wall on the southern border; prompt removal of individuals whose legal claims to stay in the U.S. were lawfully rejected; the allocation of resources to the construction and operation of detention facilities; a directive for the Secretary “to ensure the detention of aliens apprehended for violations of immigration law,” and the hiring of 5,000 additional Border Patrol agents.[31] In a separate executive order signed on the same day, titled “Enhancing the Public Safety in the Interior of the United States” the Trump Administration outlined other policy actions that placed all unauthorized individuals in the United States at risk of deportation (including families, residents, and Dreamers).[32] This executive order called for the increased use of state and local law-enforcement officers to perform functions of federal immigration officials; the hiring of an additional 10,000 Enforcement and Removal Operations officers; punishments for “sanctuary cities;” increased funding for border prosecutions; the revival of the Secure Communities Program (which was shut down in 2014 due to concerns about the program’s constitutionality); and revoked Privacy Act protections of any unauthorized persons.[33] These executive orders came just five days after Trump was inaugurated as the 45th President of the United States. They were a clear indication of the policies that would follow throughout his presidency. In the following months, Trump’s rhetoric continuously employed themes of immigrant infiltration, violence and increased crime, stolen jobs, and border insecurity.[34]
By 2018, the Trump Administration took on the issue of “catch and release”—a term used by the White House to refer to virtually any law or policy that prevents the government from deporting apprehended migrants as soon as possible, and keeping migrants in detention in the meantime.[35] On April 6, 2018, U.S. Attorney General Jeff Sessions issued the “Memorandum for Federal Prosecutors Along the Southwest Border” which directed each US Attorney’s Office along the southwest border to charge and prosecute all immigration offenses relating to improper entry.[36] Under this new zero tolerance policy, the Department of Homeland Security transferred any adult, including parents with children, apprehended at the border for criminal prosecution. This was a dramatic shift away from the Obama Administration which processed migrants through civil removal proceedings.[37] When adult migrants were detained for prosecution under the zero tolerance policy, their children were separated from them and placed under the care of ORR.[38] Per the Flores Agreement, detained children are required to be placed in the least restrictive setting. Existing detention centers and court systems were unprepared to cope with the increase in prosecution cases. From October 2017 through August 31, 2018, the Trump Administration apprehended 90,563 family units.[39] The Trump Administration held that there was no explicit, blanket policy to separate families. In their view, family separations were an unintended, but logical consequence of enforcing existing laws.
Family Separation Policy
In 2017, the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) carried out a secret pilot program to test “zero tolerance” in El Paso, Texas.[40] It was to act as a deterrent to migrant families who contemplated migrating to the U.S.[41] The pilot program quickly pointed out that there were various, dangerous operational flaws with the program. A key issue was that the Trump Administration never made arrangements to properly track families that were separated.[42] DHS did not have adequate technology to track families as they were split up into different branches of government and soon after the policy began, the Trump Administration had lost count of the families it had already separated.[43] At the time of the pilot program, Border Patrol’s software was extremely limited. More specifically, if an agent tried to refer a migrant parent for prosecution, the agent would have to delete the entire family’s file in their system and create individual files for the parent(s) and child(s).[44] Once a family’s profile was deleted from Border Patrol’s system, the agent would no longer be able to view or retrieve the family tracking number.[45] This problem was exacerbated by the fact that every agency involved in this process used different softwares and none of them had the capacity to synchronize information with each other.[46] If the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) looked at the profile of a child in its custody, the agency would have no way of knowing where the child’s parent was. According to Scott Lloyd who was a Senior Advisor at HHS during the Trump Administration, “the best way for HHS to determine whether a child was separated at the time of referral is if DHS provides this information.”[47] If DHS does not provide this information in their notes, HHS can learn of a child’s separation directly from the child during interviews with case managers—though, this only works if a child is of an age where they can communicate properly and if the child willingly discloses that information.[48] Officials at Customs and Border Protection (CBP) communicated their concerns about various system deficiencies to CBP headquarters in Washington.[49] In response, CBP headquarters relayed that those concerns were “not a high enough priority to warrant the time and resources required for system modifications.”[50] Border Patrol agents in El Paso resorted to using Excel spreadsheets and white board lists (which could be easily smudged/erased) to keep track of separated families.[51] The El Paso pilot program was an egregious example of institutional bureaucratic failures. Out of approximately 280 families separated in the pilot program, more than 30 of them were separated with no written record and some others were not easily found because of data entry errors.[52] In a shocking act of negligence, CBP’s acting chief of operations ignored an “after-action” report filled with operational concerns that it received from El Paso Border Patrol agents in November 2017.[53] HHS officials, too, noticed that they were being referred “unaccompanied minors” who were separated from their parents by U.S. officials. HHS officials made multiple efforts to share their concerns about family separations with DHS, but were rebuffed.[54] Though the El Paso pilot program operated largely in secret, immigration lawyers noticed that immigration agents were separating families along the border. At the end of 2017, the ACLU filed a lawsuit on behalf of a migrant mother from Congo who had her daughter taken from her and sent to a shelter in Chicago.[55] While the White House publicly denied that this policy existed,[56] top DHS officials and White House officials pressed forward with plans to expand family separations and zero tolerance.[57] In May 2018, when the zero tolerance policy publicly took effect after the U.S. Attorney General Jeff Sessions’ memo was released, DHS shared a startling estimate with the White House. DHS estimated that more than 26,000 migrant children would be separated from their families that Summer if the policy continued.[58] Despite the shocking internal evidence that the Trump Administration was well aware of the profound impact this policy would have on migrant families, the Trump Administration consistently denied that their family separation policy was intentional. It’s also critical to note that despite the substantial amount of technical issues that were documented as early as the Fall of 2017, efforts to truly resolve these issues did not occur until August 2018—two months after family separations were publicly ended by Trump.[59]
Shortly after the zero tolerance policy went into effect, there was national and international outrage at the inhumanity of the intentional systematic family separations taking place. Devastating images, videos, and audio recordings of the deplorable conditions inside detention facilities circulated the media and protests were planned across the country.[60] The family separation policy was condemned by the United Kingdom, the Pope, and Former First Lady Laura Bush among so many others.[61] Finally, on June 20, 2018, Trump signed an executive order stopping family separations (while noting that the rest of the zero tolerance policy aspects would still stay in place).[62] Approximately 2,700 children were separated because of this policy.[63] Three years after the formal end of the family separation policy, 445 children are still waiting to be reunified with their parents.[64] It is believed that the parents of the majority of those children were deported, making it that much more difficult to reunify their families.[65] According to a senior DHS official, “President Joe Biden’s family separation task force has identified 5,600 ‘yet-to-be-reviewed’ files from the first half of 2017 that may hold evidence of additional family separations during the Trump Administration.”[66]
Psychological Effects of the Family Separation Policy on Migrants
Social workers, immigration attorneys, medical organizations, politicians, world leaders, and other major actors in civil society have spoken out against the detrimental psychological effects of the Trump Administration’s family separation policy.[67] According to the president of the American Psychological Association, Dr. Jessica Henderson Daniel, on the impact of family separations on undocumented migrant families, “the longer that children and parents are separated, the greater the reported symptoms of anxiety and depression for the children.”[68] Even when children are reunified with their parents, there have been reports of developmental regression and lasting psychological damage.[69] Migrant children who experienced the added trauma of being torn away from their parents often exhibit fear of abandonment and experience attachment issues.[70] Medical experts have described family separation as “akin to torture and state-sanctioned child abuse that will lead to lifelong mental, emotional, and physical damage.”[71] Migrant families often flee their home countries due to conflict, violence, and persecution. A majority of them come to the United States seeking asylum. The American Medical Association (AMA) urged the Trump Administration to end its zero tolerance policy because “it would only exacerbate the stress and trauma refugee families face when seeking refuge in a foreign nation.”[72] It is critically important to note the role that demographic changes play in how migrant families are impacted. Studies indicate that Central American children (particularly those from the Northern Triangle), are especially vulnerable to the harmful effects of family separation because of their increased likelihood of having been exposed to violence.[73] Psychological trauma affects the everyday lives of migrant families. According to one study, PTSD from migration and family separations often come at the cost of child-parent relationships. Children may also have difficulties forming relationships later on in life.[74]
Dr. Colleen Kraft of the American Academy of Pediatrics (AAP) speaks to another aspect of the trauma inflicted by the Trump Administration’s zero tolerance policy. Children and parents who experienced long term detention may suffer negative physical and emotional symptoms that include anxiety, depression and posttraumatic stress disorder.[75] Dr. Kraft noted that conditions in detention centers, where children are “forced to sleep on cement floors and use open toilets, are constantly exposed to light, are given insufficient food and water, lack bathing facilities, and deal with extremely cold temperatures,” are particularly traumatic. According to Dr. Kraft, these highly stressful experiences can disrupt the building of children’s brain architecture and can lead to lifelong health consequences.[76] In 2017, the AAP strongly condemned family detention and made a number of recommendations that included the following: separation of a parent or primary caregiver from their child should never occur (unless there are concerns regarding safety); and efforts should always be made to keep parents and children together during detention.[77] Note that the AAP’s recommendations are in line with the Flores Settlement Agreement. While the Trump Administration consistently attacked the FSA as a loophole, the FSA outlines critical protections for migrant children.
Recommendations
The Trump Administration’s family separation policy was especially cruel and inhumane. It was intentionally designed to deter migrants from seeking asylum in the United States. Today, migrant families are still reeling from the effects of such a severe policy. Migrant children are forced to cope with the psychological trauma of being violently separated from their parents during an already challenging period of their lives, and forced to cope with the broader effects of detention in deplorable living conditions. The Biden Administration is tasked with a tremendous challenge and has taken incremental actions to improve the state of the immigration system in the United States. More specifically, President Biden established the Family Reunification Task Force via executive order.[78] Their duties include: establishing a database of separated families; correcting any inaccuracies in their files; and continuing to reunite families.[79] Additionally, the Task Force will address long term goals of strengthening the legal stability for reunified families, and creating systemic policy recommendations to avoid repeating family separations in the future.[80] In September 2021, the Biden Administration announced that it intends to raise the U.S. refugee cap from 65,000 to 125,000.[81] It’s a delayed fulfillment of earlier campaign pledges.[82] While the Task Force and the increased refugee cap are a significant step forward in improving the effects of the Trump Administration’s cruel policies on the lives of migrants, there is still much work to be done.
Moving forward, I strongly urge the Biden Administration to strengthen the Flores Settlement Agreement with federal legislation. The FSA is ultimately a binding contract and thus vulnerable to attacks from politicians who do not agree with the protections that it outlines. While the Trump Administration was not successfully able to withdraw from the FSA, there are indeed other alternatives to seeking relief from it. As mentioned at the beginning of this paper, the Trump Administration was not the first administration to inflict punitive measures such as long-term detention on migrants. Several legal and medical organizations have condemned this practice, noting the long-term psychological effects it can impose on migrants. In that regard, the Biden Administration must reconsider its use of detention facilities or at the very least, improve the conditions there in the short-term. Existing detention facilities are evidently inadequately prepared to cope with the increasing number of migrants entering the U.S. and the Biden Administration should avoid prolonged detentions wherever possible. Further, the Biden Administration should work to provide greater resources to the agencies licensed for child care of unaccompanied minors. In this paper, I addressed the widespread psychological trauma that migrant children experience. It is the moral responsibility of the U.S. government to protect all civilians, regardless of their immigration status. The FSA also acknowledges that unaccompanied minors have the right to counseling, though this provision should also be strengthened. At a systemic level, the Biden Administration should work to improve the coordination between the various agencies involved in the immigration process e.g. DHS, HHS, CPB, and ORR so that something as egregious as lost migrant children and parents never happens again. In the long-term, the Biden Administration should focus on addressing the various factors that push migrants to flee their home countries. While the Biden Administration appointed Vice President Kamala Harris to work on these issues with government leaders in the Northern Triangle, their plan of action is still extremely vague. Any plan needs to center Central American people and focus on improving their socioeconomic opportunities (rather than focusing solely on military assistance).
[1] Eugene Scott, “Trump’s most insulting — and violent — language is often reserved for immigrants,” The Washington Post, Oct. 2, 2019, https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2019/10/02/trumps-most-insulting-violent-language-is-often-reserved-immigrants/.
[2] Ibid.
[3] Ibid.
[4] Claudio J. Perez, ”How U.S. Policy Has Failed Immigrant Children: Family Separation in the Obama and Trump Eras,” Family Law Quarterly 54, no. 1-2 (2020): 37. Gale OneFile: LegalTrac (accessed May 5, 2021), https://link.gale.com/apps/doc/A655942249/LT?u=nellco_bpll&sid=LT&xid=bec0f782.
[5] Ibid.
[6] Library of Congress. Congressional Research Service. “Credible Fear” Claims by Central
American Migrants CRS Insight., 2014.
[7] D’vera Cohen, “Rise in U.S. Immigrants From El Salvador, Guatemala and Honduras Outpaces Growth From Elsewhere,” Pew Research Center, Dec. 7, 2017, https://www.pewresearch.org/hispanic/2017/12/07/rise-in-u-s-immigrants-from-el-salvador-guatemala-and-honduras-outpaces-growth-from-elsewhere/.
[8] Library of Congress. Congressional Research Service. Recent Migration to the United States from Central America: Frequently Asked Questions, 2019. https://crsreports.congress.gov/product/pdf/R/R45489/4.
[9] Nicole Narea, “3 asylum seekers on why they decided to flee for the US,” Vox, April 15, 2021, https://www.vox.com/policy-and-politics/2021/4/15/22383123/migrant-border-asylum-biden-cameroon-guatemala-cuba.
[10] Library of Congress. Recent Migration to the United States.
[11] U.S. Congress. House Committee on the Judiciary. (2019). Oversight of the Trump Administration’s Family Separation Policy. https://congressional-proquest-com.ezproxy.bu.edu/congressional/docview/t29.d30.h52-20190226-191520?accountid=9676.
[12] Ibid.
[13] Ibid.
[14] Library of Congress. Recent Migration to the United States.
[15] Ibid.
[16] Omar A. Salinas Chacon,”Guerrilla Government & Policy: Lessons from the Trump Administration’s Family Separation Policy,” Order No. 27998274, Eastern Kentucky University, 2020, https://ezproxy.bu.edu/login?qurl=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.proquest.com%2Fdissertations-theses%2Fguerilla-government-amp-policy-lessons-trump%2Fdocview%2F2435855511%2Fse-2%3Faccountid%3D9676.
[17] Ibid.
[18] Claudio J. Perez, ”How U.S. Policy Has Failed Immigrant Children.”
[19] Ibid.
[20] Ibid.
[21] “What is the Flores Settlement Agreement and What Does It Mean for Family Separation and Family Detention?,” Justice for Immigrants, https://justiceforimmigrants.org/what-we-are-working-on/unaccompanied-children/what-is-the-flores-settlement-agreement-and-what-does-it-mean-for-family-separation-and-family-detention/.
[22] Ibid.
[23] Jenny Lisette Flores, et al. v. Janet Reno, Attorney General of the United States, et al., (United States District Court Central District of California) (1997), https://www.aclu.org/sites/default/files/assets/flores_settlement_final_plus_extension_of_settlement011797.pdf.
[24] Ibid.
[25] Claudio J. Perez, ”How U.S. Policy Has Failed Immigrant Children.”
[26] Ibid.
[27] Jenny Lisette Flores, et al. v. Janet Reno, Attorney General of the United States, et al.
[28] Maria Sacchetti, “Federal judge blocks Trump administration from detaining migrant children for indefinite periods,” The Washington Post, September 27, 2019, https://www.washingtonpost.com/immigration/federal-judge-blocks-trump-administration-from-detaining-migrant-children-for-indefinite-periods/2019/09/27/49a39790-e15f-11e9-b199-f638bf2c340f_story.html.
[29] “Documents Relating to Flores v. Reno Settlement Agreement on Minors in Immigration Custody,” American Immigration Lawyers Association, September 27, 2019, https://www.aila.org/infonet/flores-v-reno-settlement-agreement.
[30] Ibid.
[31] National Archives Federal Register. Executive Order 13767 Border Security and Immigration Enforcement Improvements, Jan. 25, 2017. https://www.federalregister.gov/documents/2017/01/30/2017-02095/border-security-and-immigration-enforcement-improvements.
[32] “Summary of Executive Order “Enhancing Public Safety in the Interior of the United States,”” American Immigration Council, May 19, 2017, https://www.americanimmigrationcouncil.org/immigration-interior-enforcement-executive-order.
[33] National Archives Federal Register. Executive Order 13768 Enhancing Public Safety in the Interior of the United States, January 25, 2017. https://www.federalregister.gov/documents/2017/01/30/2017-02102/enhancing-public-safety-in-the-interior-of-the-united-states.
[34] Dara Lind, “”Catch and release,” explained: the heart of Trump’s new border agenda, Vox, April 9, 2018, https://www.vox.com/2018/4/9/17190090/catch-release-loopholes-border-immigrants-trump.
[35] Ibid.
[36] U.S. Congress. Oversight of the Trump Administration’s Family Separation Policy.
[37] Claudio J. Perez, ”How U.S. Policy Has Failed Immigrant Children.”
[38] U.S. Congress. Oversight of the Trump Administration’s Family Separation Policy.
[39] Claudio J. Perez, ”How U.S. Policy Has Failed Immigrant Children.”
[40] Jonathan Blitzer, “A New Report on Family Separations Shows the Depths of Trump’s Negligence,” The New Yorker, December 6, 2019, https://www.newyorker.com/news/news-desk/a-new-report-on-family-separations-shows-the-depths-of-trumps-negligence.
[41] John Burnett, “How The Trump Administration’s ‘Zero Tolerance’ Policy Changed The Immigration Debate,” NPR, June 20, 2019, https://www.npr.org/2019/06/20/734496862/how-the-trump-administrations-zero-tolerance-policy-changed-the-immigration-deba.
[42] Jonathan Blitzer, “A New Report on Family Separations.”
[43] Ibid.
[44] Ibid.
[45] Ibid.
[46] Ibid.
[47] U.S. Congress. Oversight of the Trump Administration’s Family Separation Policy.
[48] Ibid.
[49] Jonathan Blitzer, “A New Report on Family Separations.”
[50] Ibid.
[51] Ibid.
[52] Jonathan Blitzer, , “A New Report on Family Separations.”
[53] Ibid.
[54] Ibid.
[55] John Burnett, “’Zero Tolerance’ Policy Changed The Immigration Debate.”
[56] Ibid.
[57] Jonathan Blitzer, “A New Report on Family Separations.”
[58] Ibid.
[59] Ibid.
[60] John Burnett, “How The Trump Administration’s ‘Zero Tolerance’ Policy Changed The Immigration Debate.”
[61] Ibid.
[62] Ibid.
[63] Aishvarya Kavi, “A court filing says parents of 445 separated migrant children still have not been found,” NY Times, April 7, 2021, https://www.nytimes.com/2021/04/07/us/migrant-children-separated-border.html.
[64] Ibid.
[65] Ibid.
[66] Maggie Jo Buchanan, “The Trump Administration’s Family Separation Policy is Over,” American Progress, April 12, 2021, https://www.americanprogress.org/issues/immigration/reports/2021/04/12/497999/trump-administrations-family-separation-policy/.
[67] Claudio J. Perez, ”How U.S. Policy Has Failed Immigrant Children.”
[68] Ibid.
[69] Ibid.
[70] Ibid.
[71] Maggie Jo Buchanan, “Family Separation Policy is Over.”
[72] Claudio J. Perez, ”How U.S. Policy Has Failed Immigrant Children.”
[73] Omar A. Salinas Chacon,”Lessons from the Trump Administration’s Family Separation Policy.”
[74] Ibid.
[75] Ibid.
[76] Ibid.
[77] Ibid.
[78] “Biden Administration Begins This Week to Reunite Families Separated Under the Prior Administration,” Department of Homeland Security, May 3, 2021, https://www.dhs.gov/news/2021/05/03/biden-administration-begins-week-reunite-families-separated-under-prior.
[79] Ibid.
[80] Ibid.
[81] The Associated Press, “Biden Follows Through On A Campaign Promise To Take In More Refugees,” NPR, September 20, 2021, https://www.npr.org/2021/09/20/1039136990/biden-refugee-cap-125000.
[82] Ibid.