BORDER/CHILDREN/IMMIGRATION/LAWSUITS/TRUMP AS PRESDIENT: “President Donald Trump’s administration has agreed to reconsider the asylum claims of some 1,000 immigrant parents and children who were separated at the U.S. border as part of a deal to settle lawsuits over his ‘zero-tolerance’ immigration policy. The settlement, detailed in court documents late on Wednesday [9-12-18], represented a victory for rights groups that challenged Trump’s contentious family separation policy that was aimed at deterring illegal immigration. If approved by U.S. District Judge Dana Sabraw in San Diego, immigrant parents and their children will get a second chance to apply for asylum even if U.S. authorities previously rejected their claims that they faced a ‘credible fear of persecution or torture’ if sent back to their home countries. More than 1,000 people will be eligible to apply again for asylum under the settlement, according to Muslim Advocates, one of the rights groups that sued the administration. The family separations and the detention of thousands of children, mostly from Guatemala, Honduras and El Salvador, prompted widespread condemnation of Trump’s policy. About 2,500 children and parents were separated before Trump abandoned the policy in June. Days later, a federal judge ordered the families reunited, a process that is still incomplete.”
–Tom Hals, “U.S. to reconsider asylum for separated immigrant families,” Reuters, September 13, 2018 6:12 am