The Trump administration is refusing to reunite nearly a dozen immigrant families with children younger than five years old due to the criminal record of a parent, even as attorneys for the American Civil Liberties Union argue that some of the records in question involve a non-violent crime or even the lack of a conviction and thus should not be used to keep families apart, TPM reported on Monday.
The ACLU lawyers contend that only a criminal record that shows an imminent danger to the child should justify keeping parents apart.
The ACLU, which won a national injunction against the Trump administration forcing them to reunite all of the approximately 3,000 families separated under the "zero tolerance" policy, also said the administration has not yet provided concrete proof of the criminal records they are using to deny reunification, which makes it impossible for them to check the matter and contest their authenticity and severity.
The Trump administration has reunited just over half of the children younger than five who were taken from their parents and is telling courts that the rest are ineligible for various reasons, including the criminal records of the parents involved.
While some crimes would normally not justify separating a child and parent, under U.S. District Judge Dana Sabraw’s reunification order, any criminal record other than a charge for illegal entry into the U.S., no matter how minor, means a parent cannot be a part of the class action and is not entitled to be reunified by July 26.
A former senior DHS official told TPM, however, that the agency has never before separated families over minor offenses and should not do so now.
Sabraw also emphasized in his ruling that the Trump administration cannot use a parent’s low-level criminal history to permanently refuse to return their child.
A separate class action lawsuit against the administration brought by the Center for Human Rights and Constitutional Law says the due process rights of the parents are being violated because they are unable to challenge the administration’s determination that they should not be reunified.
"ORR prolongs children’s detention on the ground that their parents or other available custodians are or may be unfit, while affording neither detained juveniles nor their proposed custodians a meaningful or timely opportunity to be heard regarding a proposed custodian’s fitness," the group’s complaint reads. They add that the government’s standards for fitness are "are subject to change without prior notice or opportunity for comment."
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