FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

Washington, D.C., June 25, 2020—Today, one day before the two-year anniversary of a federal court order requiring the reunification of immigrant children unlawfully taken from their parents, the Young Center for Immigrant Children’s Rights released a report chronicling family separation under the Trump administration.

“Family Separation Is Not Over: How the Trump Administration Continues to Separate Children from Their Parents to Serve Its Political Ends,” details the work of Young Center Child Advocates to identify and reunify children forcibly separated from their parents and legal guardians before, during, and after the administration’s Zero Tolerance policy. The report shows that although Zero Tolerance was ended in the face of public backlash, family separation continues to the present day.

“Children of all ages were forcibly taken from their parents because of decades-old charges that had nothing to do with the parents’ ability to care for the child or allegations of criminal history that turned out to be completely erroneous. After spending months in federal custody, these children were reunited with their parents for the sole purpose of deportation, undercutting any claims that the separations were meant to protect children,” said Young Center Policy Director Jennifer Nagda. “They were thrown into a system that couldn’t even link children to their separated parents, much less address the developmental and health needs of children ripped from their families as a result of this policy.”

Separated children’s stories, the work of independent Child Advocates, and the voices of government watchdog agencies are brought together in the Young Center’s report. The report also details how today parents who help their children flee persecution face criminal charges as smugglers or traffickers of their own children, a threat first posed by the administration in 2017. The report provides six recommendations for Congress, federal agencies, and other policy makers, centered on the need to prioritize children’s best interests in every decision that affects their lives.

“We cannot forget that family separation continues today, under programs such as the so-called Migrant Protection Protocols which traps families in Mexico to await hearings in border tent courts. The dangerous conditions in the U.S.-created refugee encampments lead many children to return to the border alone to seek protection. This is no choice: it is just another form of family separation,” said Mary Miller Flowers, Senior Policy Analyst for Child Protection at the Young Center.

On June 25 at 7:00pm ET/4:00pm PT, the Young Center will host an online, community conversation on the impact of family separation throughout U.S. history, from Indigenous children taken from their families and communities and the separation of Black children, children of color, and impoverished children from their parents through the child welfare system, to migrant families seeking protection at our borders. Registration for the event, which will feature Woltjen, Sylvie Bello of the Cameroon American Council, and Priscilla Monico Marín, a supervising attorney with the Young Center, is available here.

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The Young Center for Immigrant Children’s Rights is a non-profit organization that protects and advances the rights and best interests of immigrant children and advocates for an immigration system that treats children as children first. For press inquiries, please contact Noorjahan Akbar at media@theyoungcenter.org or 202-725-7184.