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Trump Implemented Family Separation After Government Officials Raised Red Flags
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Emily Creighton
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<img src=”http://immigrationimpact.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/04/immigration-impact-family-separation-border-1280×640.jpg” alt=”Trump Implemented Family Separation After Government Officials Raised Red Flags”> </div>
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<div class=”at-above-post addthis_tool” data-url=”http://immigrationimpact.com/2019/12/17/trump-knew-family-separation-harmful/”></div><p>Government officials were aware of the harm family separation would cause and were critical of the practice years before the Trump administration established it as an official policy.</p>
<p>Advocates unearthed this and other details about the “zero tolerance” policy in response to a series of <a href=”https://www.americanimmigrationcouncil.org/foia/family-separation-foia-request” target=”_blank” rel=”noopener noreferrer”>Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) requests</a> filed in April 2018.</p>
<p>The FOIA <a href=”https://www.americanimmigrationcouncil.org/foia/family-separation-foia-request” target=”_blank” rel=”noopener noreferrer”>requests</a> have uncovered documents that reveal a practice of family separations as early as 2016. These documents include government officials’ emails and incident reports.</p>
<p>The documents are significant because they show that internal efforts to raise red flags went ignored. They also reveal that oversight efforts did nothing to deter the administration’s widespread implementation of family separation in the spring and summer of 2018.</p>
<p><a href=”https://www.americanimmigrationcouncil.org/sites/default/files/foia_documents/family_separation_foia_request_hhs_production_records_of_reunification_efforts.pdf” target=”_blank” rel=”noopener noreferrer”>Emails</a> show the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) officials’ knowledge of and frustration with the practice of family separation as early September 2016. In an email chain discussing the process for reunifying parents and children, one senior official stated, “[t]he best that could happen is… to stop the practice of family separation.”</p>
<p>Officials also attempted to <a href=”https://www.americanimmigrationcouncil.org/sites/default/files/foia_documents/family_separation_foia_request_hhs_production_records_of_reunification_efforts.pdf” target=”_blank” rel=”noopener noreferrer”>document family separation</a> in 2016 by submitting significant incident reports, historically used by the agency to document instances of child abuse, misconduct, or negligence. But these documents could not paint a full picture. Government employees generally had little information about the children in their care.</p>
<p>In one heartbreaking example, a report stated that a three-year-old was separated from her father on an unknown date and location. The child was unable to convey information as she did not speak English or Spanish.</p>
<p><a href=”https://publicintegrity.org/inequality-poverty-opportunity/immigration/migrant-children-family-separations” target=”_blank” rel=”noopener noreferrer”>Recent reporting</a> by the Center for Public Integrity—supported in part by the FOIA documents requested by the American Immigration Council, National Immigrant Justice Center, Kids in Need of Defense, Women’s Refugee Commission, and Florence Immigrant and Refugee Rights Project—examines what the administration knew before deciding to embrace zero tolerance.</p>
<p>The Center for Public Integrity pointed out that a Homeland Security advisory committee issued a report condemning family separation in 2016. This was around the same time HHS officials sent emails criticizing the program.</p>
<p>The report urged the U.S. Department of Homeland Security to find alternatives to family separation when, for example, a parent might be too ill to care for a child or the child might be hospitalized. The report did not envision how widespread family separation would become. But it criticized the act of separating a family, nonetheless.</p>
<p>Other <a href=”https://www.americanimmigrationcouncil.org/sites/default/files/foia_documents/family_separation_foia_request_hhs_production_records_of_reunification_efforts.pdf” target=”_blank” rel=”noopener noreferrer”>documents</a> demonstrate HHS officials’ urgency in dealing with separated families. This included attempts to reunify, repatriate, and maintain contact between separated family members in the chaos of zero tolerance.</p>
<p><a href=”https://www.oig.dhs.gov/sites/default/files/assets/2019-11/OIG-20-06-Nov19.pdf” target=”_blank” rel=”noopener noreferrer”>Oversight offices</a> have consistently determined that agencies were woefully unprepared to track and reunify families before, during, and after zero tolerance. The <a href=”https://www.oig.dhs.gov/sites/default/files/assets/2019-11/OIG-20-06-Nov19.pdf” target=”_blank” rel=”noopener noreferrer”>FOIA records</a> drive this point home.</p>
<p>Agencies’ lack of technology and coordination meant they could not easily track and reunify families. But it is becoming increasingly clear that agencies <em>did</em> understand how harmful the policy would be to children and families.</p>
<p>Piecing together what agency and administration officials knew in the years leading up to zero tolerance continues to be a critically important part of the narrative. Much still needs to be revealed.</p>
<p>This post originally appeared on <a href=”http://immigrationimpact.com/2019/12/17/trump-knew-family-separation-harmful/#.XfzorPxOmUk” target=”_blank”>Immigration Impact</a>. Reprinted with permission.</p>
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<b>Emily Creighton</b> is the Directing Attorney for Transparency at the American Immigration Council. She oversees the development of the Council’s transparency-related litigation, amicus briefs, practice advisories and advocacy, including maintaining an active docket of Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) cases. She seeks to uncover agency records that will advance litigation, advocacy and research efforts to combat abuses at the border and unlawful enforcement tactics, promote fair and just removal processes, and shed light on unlawful adjudications of immigration benefits. She also seeks to strengthen collaboration among organizations involved in open government work in the immigration space. Prior to her new role at the Council, she served as the Senior Advisor on Humanitarian Programs at the CIS Ombudsman’s Office from 2016 to 2017. Previous to that, she was a Senior Staff Attorney with the Council. As a staff attorney, she engaged in impact litigation, representing amicus curiae in immigration cases in federal court and before the Board of Immigration Appeals, and authored numerous practice advisories. Emily holds a J.D. from American University Washington College of Law and a B.A. from Boston College.
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