Under the Trump administration’s zero-tolerance policy, five thousand families were separated after crossing the southern border. The Biden administration task force has now just reunited these migrant families but an estimated one thousand remain apart. This follows an executive order signed by the president to find and reunite separated families. Under Trump, the agencies did not keep track of which children were separated and where they were sent. This has caused a delay among the task force and lawyers that are working hard to represent the separated families to give them any chance at reunification. In a majority of the cases, they are working with the parents of the families who were deported while the children remained in the United States. Their lawyers are advocating for permanent legal status within the United States, but this process is quite lengthy and difficult.
After being apart for several years, it is difficult for the children to become accustomed to their parents as much of their emotional and social development has already occurred. This calls for mental health counseling to solve the issues created by the long separation in order for the children to easily live in a new environment. Although it may seem that a lot of progress has been made, there is much work yet to be done as hundreds of families are still living apart from one another.
