On Monday, Kevin McAleenan, the Commissioner of US Customs and Border Protection, said that he has temporarily directed the agency to stop referring immigrant parents for prosecution in federal courts after they are caught illegally entering the US with children. McAleenan told Texas reporters that the decision was made soon after President Donald Trump signed an executive order to end the separation of immigrant families, last week.
The commissioner said that the zero-tolerance policy practiced by the Trump administration would continue and that there would still be family separations if immigrant parents had criminal records or were believed to be a threat either to the child or the general public. But, McAleenan says that 538 minors have so far been reunited with their parents and that, of the families currently awaiting reunification, none were in the custody of Border Patrol.
McAleenan says that the immigrant parents are no longer being prosecuted because of the guidance to maintain family unity in Trump’s executive order. Immigrant advocates say that parents held in detention and separated from their children are being told to agree to deportation and withdraw claims for asylum if they want to be reunited with their families.
On Monday, lawyers demanded that the government speed up the rate of reunions as McAleenan visited the border facilities holding families. Separated family members are being tracked by Immigration and Customs Enforcement and then reunited before deportation, according to a Department of Homeland Security and HSS statement, released over the weekend.