Administration: 1,820 children reunited after border split
SAN DIEGO — The Trump administration said Thursday that more than 1,800 children separated at the U.S.-Mexico border have been reunited with parents and sponsors but hundreds remain apart, signalling a potentially long wait for anguished families.
The federal government was under a Thursday deadline to reunify more than 2,500 children separated from their parents under a new immigration policy designed to deter immigrants from coming here illegally. The policy quickly backfired amid global outrage from political and religious leaders and daily headlines about crying children taken from their parents.
President Donald Trump ended the practice, but a federal judge in San Diego ordered the government to reunite all the families by the end of Thursday. U.S. District Judge Dana Sabraw has indicated some leeway given the enormity of the task, which would continue past the deadline.
As of Thursday morning, the government said it reunited 1,442 children 5 and older with their parents in U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement custody. An additional 378 were reunited with parents in different locations around the country or given to sponsors, who are often relatives or close family members.