Families Separated by Trump Reunite, Thanks to the Biden Administration

Former President Donald Trump Illegal Immigration Separation of Families in US-Mexico Border Reunification Process Children Reunited to Immigrant Parents Department of Homeland Security Department of Health and Human Services trauma emotional wounds mental wound Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas mental and behavioral health services

By Jo Anne Hubert , Parent Herald Feb 04, 04:27 am

Photo: (Photo : Getty Images/HERIKA MARTINEZ/AFP)

Nearly 700 children were reunited with their families after being separated during the term of former president Donald Trump.

A task force created by the Biden administration made the reunion of the families separated by Trump possible, officials announced Thursday.

According to the Department of Homeland Security (DHS), a total of 3,881 children, mostly Central American, were separated from their families from 2017 to 2021 during the reign of Trump. As of this writing, 74 percent of these children have been reconnected to their families.

A total of 2,176 children were located and reunified through a court process after the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) took legal action against the separation policy. This was pre-Biden's administration, while the rest of the 689 children were brought back to their families after the task force was created.

Trump's administration was widely condemned when children were "forcibly" separated from their parents at the U.S.-Mexico border to diminish illegal immigration. On the first day of Biden in office, he issued an executive order, his government's first step in undoing the former president's immigration legacy, to reunite these families. A long-awaited task force was made for that sole mission, according to Politico.

The task force continues to work hard

The remaining 26 percent, or nearly 1,000 children, remain separated from their families.

DHS informed the public that there are currently 148 children going through the reunification process.

They further noted that the number of separated families continues to increase as new families come to the department and identify themselves. They, however, commit to continuing the work until all separated families can be reunited, Reuters reported.

Healing the trauma and the wounds

From the thousands of migrant parents separated from their children, the minors, who could not be held in criminal custody with their parents, were placed in the Department of Health and Human Services. They were eventually sent to live by a sponsor, mostly a relative or someone connected to the family. Yet, despite leaving with relatives, being forced away from their real parents can be tragically traumatic.

Thus, more than the reunification, the task force also provides mental and behavioral health services to the children.

Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas informed reporters Thursday that they are also focusing on the effort to address "the wounds" and the trauma, both mentally and emotionally, the separations had caused.

Mayorkas narrated how a teenage daughter who was separated from her mother at 13 and reconnected with her at 16 cannot understand the "force behind the separation." This teenager's mother told the secretary that she still gets the blame for the separation, stating that her daughter "still could not understand how her mother would let her be separated," ABC News quoted.