According to a report in The Washington Post yesterday, there are 545 orphaned migrant children because the federal government cannot find their parents. The Trump Administration launched a “zero tolerance” program designed to discourage migrants from coming to the country. As part of the deterrence program, the federal government began summarily separating migrant children from their parents.
Yesterday, the federal government told a judge that they are unable to locate 545 children that were taken from their parents.
The missing children were bureaucratically lost because the federal government was in a rush to test if taking children would deter migrants under a pilot program started in 2017.
The child separation pilot program was launched in El Paso in 2017. Readers can read about the program using this link.
According to a NBC News report from June 29, 2018, between October 2016 and 2018, 1,768 children were taken from their parents. To take the children away, federal immigration officials classified them as “unaccompanied” minors, although they were apprehended with their parents.
The El Paso pilot program became the standard by which to discourage migrants by taking away their children.
