HHS Pushes Back on Family Reunification

Source: bizpacreview.com

The US Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) rebuked a California judge's order regarding family reunification of illegal immigrants. San Diego judge, Dana Sabraw demanded in June that the Trump administration reunite over 2,000 detained children with their parents by July 26.

The demand was rebutted by HHS, Evelyn Stauffer a spokesperson for the HHS said "It is not, nor should it be, our objective to reunify all 2,551 minors with the adult whom they arrived here with, because some of those adults are not their parents or pose a clear danger to the children". 57 of the 103 migrant children under 5 were united with their parents but the remaining 46 were deemed ineligible for reunification due to safety concerns posed by an adult including false parental status, serious criminal history and a history of sexual abuse.

At this point, a valid question would be 'How many of these immigrant children crossed the border without their real parents or any parent?'. I did a search for information and I wasn't able to find detailed numbers. I could only find some information on factcheck.org. It says that between April 19 and the end of May, 1,995 minors were separated, this number was confirmed by Homeland Security. From May 5 though June 9, the number was 2,342. As of June 15, there were 11,517 minors being held under the "Unaccompanied Children's Program'. This number includes minors whom were separated from their parents.

Using these numbers, if there were 11,517 total minor and the minors separated was 2,342, this would leave 9,175 minors that crossed the border without a parent. Since it is not clear if the 2,342 included the minors separated prior to May 5, the number of minors without parents would be 7,180. This means that at least 62% of the minor immigrants have no parents in the US. Should the US be liable to return these children?