Joe Biden’s administration will start the reunification process for migrant families separated as part of former President Donald Trump’s zero-tolerance policies against illegal immigration.
Department of Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas said in a call Sunday night that four families will be reunited this week.
Two of the four include mothers – one Mexican and one Honduran – who were separated from their children in 2017, Mayorkas detailed without providing their identities. He described the range of children from 3-years-old at the time of separation to ‘teenagers who have had to live without their parent during their most formative years.’
It is not immediately clear how DHS selected these four families to be reunited first and the agency has not yet responded to a request for more information from DailyMail.com.
The president promised during his campaign that he would reunite families separated after crossing the border and created a task force shortly after taking office dedicated to reunification.
‘Our team is dedicated to finding every family and giving them an opportunity to reunite and heal,’ Mayorkas told reporters Sunday.
Joe Biden’s administration will begin reuniting families this week who were separated when crossing the border under Donald Trump’s ‘zero tolerance’ immigration policies. Here an immigrant mother carries her children into the U.S. after crossing illegally from Mexico
Four of the 1,000 families who remain separated will be reunited this week as Biden’s Family Reunification Task Force charges forward with starting the process. Pictured: Migrant families overcrowded in a U.S. border facility in McAllen, Texas in June 2019
‘We continue to work tirelessly to reunite many more children with their parents in the weeks and months ahead,’ Mayorkas said during the call. ‘We have a lot of work still to do, but I am proud of the progress we have made and the reunifications that we have helped to achieve this week.’
The administration’s Family Reunification Task Force Executive Director Michelle Brane said the parents will return to the U.S. on humanitarian parole as authorities consider longer-term legal status.
Under Trump’s policies, families arriving at the border were separated into different facilities, upon which time most parents and adults were deported, while children were kept in federal custody.
Now, Biden will begin the process of allowing parents who were previously deported to return to the U.S. to be with their children.
Record numbers of illegal immigrants continue to cross into the U.S. as Biden promises no unaccompanied children will be turned away and said during his campaign he would accept all asylum-seekers. Here a smuggler paddles immigrants across the Rio Grande River on April 30
Starting in the summer of 2017, Trump implemented ‘zero-tolerance’ policies to easier criminally prosecute illegal immigrants, which led to more than 5,000 children being separated from their parents. The practices officially ended by court order in June 2018.
Brane believes there are still 1,000 families who are separated.
Despite the reunification process kicking off this week, the Biden administration is still facing its biggest issues at the southern border.
In recent months, Biden has seen record-numbers of illegal immigrants crossing as he vowed during his campaign all asylum-seekers would have a place in the U.S.
There are also tens of thousands of unaccompanied minor children in federal custody after public messaging from the White House promised not to turn away any children arriving at the border without an adult.
Migrants from Northern Triangle countries continue to take dangerous measures to get into the U.S.
Four people were killed and more than two dozen others were hospitalized Sunday after a boat capsized and broke apart in rough water just off the San Diego coast during a suspected human smuggling operation, authorities said.
Smugglers continue dangerous tactics to get immigrants to the U.S. Four people were killed and nearly two dozen others were hospitalized after a boat capsized Sunday just off the San Diego coast
The image above shows debris washing ashore just off the coast of San Diego on Sunday
Video footage shot by horrified beachgoers shows the boat tipping over in the water before breaking apart as it was battered by the waves and rocks.
Lifeguards, the U.S. Coast Guard and other agencies responded around 10 a.m. following reports of an overturned vessel in the waves near the rugged peninsula of Point Loma, according to the San Diego Fire-Rescue Department.
The original call was for a handful of people overboard but as rescuers arrived in boats and jet skis they quickly realized ‘it was going to be a bigger situation with more people,’ said San Diego Lifeguard Services Lt. Rick Romero.
‘There are people in the water, drowning, getting sucked out the rip current there,’ he said. ‘Once we arrived on scene, the boat had basically been broken apart. Conditions were pretty rough: 5 to 6 feet of surf, windy, cold.’