The details of this plan aren’t clear, at least not to me based on this NBS News story. But it sounds as if the plan is to allow adults who were separated from their children and then deported to reunite here in the U.S. and stay for some period of time. Transportation and health care are included:
The Biden administration’s task force for reuniting migrant families separated by the Trump administration will give separated families the option to be reunified in the U.S. or their countries of origin, Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas said Monday…
“We are hoping to reunite the families either here or in their country of origin. We hope to be in a position to give them the election, and if, in fact, they seek to reunite here in the United States, we will explore lawful pathways for them to remain in the United States and to address the family needs,” he said…
Other benefits and protections for separated families include transportation, health care and mental health services, as well as legal, career and educational services, with no costs passed down to families.
A DHS spokesperson said the task force will also consider siblings of separated children for reunification.
As mentioned above, some of the details of this new plan seem a little vague. The ACLU is hoping to push the administration into dropping the caveats and just offering a pathway to citizenship.
ACLU Executive Director Anthony D. Romero was quick to welcome Mayorkas’ announcement, but cautioned that “the devil is in the details and Secretary Mayorkas has to shed all the caveats and qualifications around his announcement and follow through with everything that’s necessary to right the wrong.”
“These separated families suffered unfathomably because of what our government did, and we owe them restitution. This includes a permanent pathway to citizenship, care, and resources to help them,” Romero said.
What are the caveats that need to be dropped exactly? This PBS News Hour report says the reunification will be “pending a resolution of their status.” Maybe the assumption here is that most of these people were claiming asylum when they crossed the border. If so that’s a long process. It could take months or more than a year before the people who have applied for asylum get a chance to go before an immigration judge and plead their case. Prior to Trump, people waiting for hearings were allowed to wait inside the country for a resolution. At a minimum, it sounds like these reunited families will get a return to that system.
How many people are we talking about here? That’s another thing that isn’t completely clear. Politico reports that approximately 5,500 families were separated while the policy was in force. By the time Biden became President, the parents of about 600 children had not been located. Since then the Biden task force has reunited another 105 families.
Here’s DHS Sec. Mayorkas announcing the plan this morning. As Allahpundit noted earlier, Mayorkas spent much of his time at the podium asking migrants not to come to the border, at least not yet. There’s a good chance this is going to turn into a real disaster by the spring when temperatures rise a bit. When it does a lot of people will be wondering how the Biden administration didn’t see it coming.