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DNA tests for separated migrant children

July 08, 2018 02:16·
HHS Secy Pushes Back on Reports of Mass Confusion in Reuniting Migrant Families

HHS Secy Pushes Back on Reports of Mass Confusion in Reuniting Migrant Families

Sarah Fabian, the Justice Department attorney representing the government, told Sabraw that there are about 100 children under age five who may have been separated from their parents and who are being held in the custody of the Department of Health and Human Services' Office of Refugee Resettlement, also known as ORR. But the massive effort is complicated by difficulty in locating some parents and, in other cases, uncertainty about the parents' identities. The move prompted mass outrage in the United States and internationally.

'We have not sent children into ICE custody yet pursuant to the court's order but we will do so as we approach the court's deadline, ' he said Thursday on a call with reporters. "But I would need more information".

Without the family identification numbers to connect them, immigrant parents and their children appear in federal computers as individuals with separate cases and no relation to one another.

"As HHS continues to evaluate the impact of the District Court ruling, and given the constantly changing number of unaccompanied alien children in our care (every day minors are referred to our care and released from our care to parents, close relatives or suitable sponsors), we are providing the total number of unaccompanied alien children in the care of HHS-funded grantees".

Sabraw, appointed in 2003 by President George W. Bush, late last month ordered federal officials to reunite all families within 30 days, and children under 5 within two weeks.

In mid-June, the Department of Homeland Security said it separated almost 2,000 children from their parents in April and May after the Department of Justice announced a "zero-tolerance" policy to prosecute everyone who crosses the border illegally. Some parents were deported without their children, making reunification all the more hard.

"This isn't some vast sprawling data set that we're matching up", he said.

This isn't a flawless equation; we don't know whether the children released from HHS custody were reunited with parents - only that they're no longer in one of the agency's shelters.

In cases where parents are still in government custody reunification shouldn't be delayed, but there are cases where the government has already released the parents into the interior of the U.S. Another nine are in the custody of U.S. Marshals. It is using DNA testing and going through case files for all 11,800 kids in its custody ― most of whom came without parents ― one by one. Daily Beast reports that "Sabraw initially asked the government to provide her with a list on the status of all the young children and their parents by 5 p.m Saturday" until the dog-sitting intervened. "It just doesn't make sense", he continued.

"When people, with or without children, enter our Country, they must be told to leave without our..."

The ORR program "was not created to track the circumstances" behind a child's arrival in the U.S., Azar said, and the Department of Homeland Security didn't tell the refugee agency which children were taken from parents and which came over the border unaccompanied.

In the new court filing, the government is also seeking to limit the number of families eligible for reunification.

Azar said HHS is working "overtime" to confirm that the people who purportedly are parents of those children actually are their parents, and is also checking to see if any parents have a background that makes them unsafe to receive a child. This had shortened the period for confirmations to a few days from a couple of weeks.

"The safety and security is paramount and that it is not uncommon for children to be trafficked or smuggled by those claiming to be parents". In one account, a 14-month-old baby fleeing El Salvador past year was separated from his father at a port of entry in Southern California.

Additionally, DNA tests are being done to ensure children are reunited with actual family members. He was "full of dirt and lice", Caceres said in her declaration. "Then we will comply with the court's order and reunify them". "M.is not the same since we were reunited", Caceres said. Trump administration officials have been assailed in public by angry protestors.

The government said it is willing to propose an alternative timeline.

The Congolese woman, identified in court documents as Mrs. L, claimed asylum on November 1, 2017, and four days later was separated from her daughter.

The girl turned 8 in a government shelter. But he signaled they'd ask a judge for more time. "But they're choosing not to do that and asking the court for more time".

Over the previous weekend, and during the Fourth of July holiday on Wednesday, protests took to the streets to oppose Mr Trump's decision to separate families.

USA officials have reunited around 83 children with their parents so far.

"This would allow the government to conduct surveillance on these children for the rest of their lives". But court records reveal the challenges lay ahead. HHS typically uses birth records to match children and their parents. The process takes about a week, he said in the declaration, though it can take longer to complete verification.

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