7/2/2018

BORDER/CHILDREN/HHS/IMMIGRATION/LEGAL/TRUMP AS PRESIDENT: “Federal officials are struggling to reunite migrant children with their families despite a court deadline, and agencies do not have the resources or procedures to help thousands of children detained at the border back into the arms of their parents, according to a dozen current and former officials, advocates and experts. With a July 10 deadline looming, staffers at the Office of Refugee Resettlement, the division within HHS that oversees the care of unaccompanied children, have received no instructions on how to proceed, the sources say…U.S. District Court Judge Dana Sabraw ruled last week that the Trump administration had until July 10 to reunite migrant children under 5 with their parents, and until July 26 to reunite the rest. But the refugee office is still struggling to answer basic questions such as how many children in its custody were separated from their parents. HHS Secretary Alex Azar told Congress last week that his department could find children in his department’s care ‘within seconds.’ But he subsequently called for volunteers to review the case files of each of the roughly 11,900 children in custody to determine whether HHS missed any who had been separated from adults at the border, according to two current officials.”

Ted Hesson and Dan Diamond, “As deadline looms, Trump officials struggle to reunite migrant families,” Politico, July 2, 2018 5:57 pm