Five Years Later, the Fight for Justice for Separated Immigrant Families Continues

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE 

Wednesday, July 26, 2023 

Media Contact: media@theyoungcenter.org 

Washington D.C.— On this day five years ago, the U.S. government failed to reach a court-ordered deadline to reunite families unlawfully separated under the Trump administration’s Zero Tolerance policy. To this day, hundreds remain separated. Parents continue to fight for custody of their children back. Others who have been reunited, have been left to put back the pieces shattered at the hands of the Trump administration with insufficient support and resources. All the while, the Biden administration continues to defend the policy in court and deny separated families the damages they seek.  

Kelly Albinak Kribs, Co-Director of the Technical Assistance Program at the Young Center for Immigrant Children’s Rights, said: 

"Today is far from the anniversary any of us would hope for separated immigrant families who have yet to be recompensed for the harms they’ve endured. Instead, today serves as an undeniable reminder that the ripple effects of the Trump administration’s Zero Tolerance policy remain far-reaching and alive. While over 3,000 families have been reunited to date, hundreds more remain separated. 

This deliberate and heinous effort by our government to separate families catapulted many children into a web of complex legal systems –including the state level foster care system—which has severely complicated some children’s efforts to reunify with their parents. In these cases, parents who have returned to the U.S. in the hopes of being with their children have faced additional legal barriers to regaining custody and have been unjustly put in the position to prove their ability to be a parent to their child—even though their child was wrongfully taken from them in the first place. These families deserve justice. They deserve a chance to heal. We urge the Biden administration to stop defending the evils of family separation and ensure each child and parent forced to endure these harms finally gets the long-overdue restitution they seek and deserve.” 

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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 Anabel Mendoza at media@theyoungcenter.org