DHS Responds To Claims 545 Immigrant Children Have Yet To Be Reunited, Says Some Parents ‘Refused’ Reunions

Despite their best efforts, DHS says, many of the children’s parents have refused a reunion, leaving the children orphaned in DHS’s care.

The policy of separating adults seeking asylum from accompanying minor children at the border began during the Obama administration, after a judicial ruling barring the Obama administration from holding asylum-seeking families for more than two weeks. The Obama administration reasoned that, if the families were separated, it would both allow immigration officials to extend the time adults could spend in custody and could deter families from seeking asylum in the United States.


Department of Homeland Security spokesperson Chase Jennings was clear in responding to the lawsuit this week, calling the report “wholly inaccurate,” and pointing to evidence in the plaintiffs’ own filings noting that, of the 545 children yet to be reunited with their parents, a shocking 485 children have been left in DHS custody because their parents or family members “refused” a reunion.


“This story is wholly inaccurate,” Jennings said on Twitter. “In the current litigation, for example, out of the parents of 485 children whom Plaintiffs’ counsel has been able to contact, they’ve yet to identify a single family that wants their child reunited with them in their country of origin.”


“In the current litigation, for example, out of the parents of 485 children whom Plaintiffs’ counsel has been able to contact, they have yet to identify a single family that wants their child reunited with them in their country of origin. The result is that the children remain in the U.S. white the parents remain in their home country. The reunification process is a whole-of-government approach involving CBP, ICE, and HHS.”