Trump backs down on separating immigrant
children, legal problems remain
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[June 21, 2018]
By Roberta Rampton and Steve Holland
WASHINGTON (Reuters) - U.S. President
Donald Trump on Wednesday backed down and abandoned his policy of
separating immigrant children from their parents on the U.S.-Mexico
border, after images of youngsters in cages sparked outrage at home and
abroad.
Trump signed an executive order requiring immigrant families be detained
together when they are caught entering the country illegally for as long
as their criminal proceedings take.
While that may end a policy that drew a rebuke from Pope Francis and
everyone else from human rights advocates to business leaders, it may
also mean immigrant children remain in custody indefinitely.
The Trump administration still faces legal challenges because of a court
order that put a 20-day cap on how long immigration authorities may
detain minors, and trigger fresh criticism of Trump's hardline
immigration policies, which were central to his 2016 election campaign
and now his presidency.
Administration officials were unable to clarify whether family
separations would end immediately or when and how families now separated
would be reunited.

"It is still very early and we are awaiting further guidance on the
matter," Brian Marriott, a spokesman for the Health and Human Services
Department's Administration for Children and Families. "Reunification is
always the ultimate goal of those entrusted with the care of"
unaccompanied children and "the administration is working towards that"
for those in custody.
The Trump order, an unusual reversal by him, moves parents with children
to the front of the line for immigration proceedings but it does not end
a 10-week-old "zero tolerance" policy that calls for prosecution of
immigrants crossing the border illegally under the country's criminal
entry statute.
"It's about keeping families together while at the same time making sure
that we have a very powerful, very strong border," Trump said as he
signed the order in a hastily arranged Oval Office gathering.
Video footage of children sitting in cages and an audiotape of wailing
children had sparked anger as the images were broadcast worldwide.
Governments from Central America and Mexico welcomed Trump's decision on
Wednesday, but said they would remain vigilant to ensure the rights of
their citizens were respected.
An avid viewer of cable television news, Trump recognized that the
family separation issue was a growing political problem, White House
sources said.
Trump's wife, Melania Trump, in private conversations with the
president, urged him to do something to end the humanitarian crisis, a
White House official said.

In the Oval Office, Trump said he had also heard from his daughter and
aide, Ivanka Trump, about the policy.
"Ivanka feels very strongly. My wife feels very strongly about it. I
feel very strongly about it. I think anybody with a heart would feel
very strongly about it," Trump said.
Wednesday's move was the most significant policy reversal by Trump since
he took office in January 2017. Instinctively combative and fond of
chaos, Trump usually digs in on controversial policies, rather than
backing down.
He had tried to blame Democrats for the separations policy and force
them into concessions, including funding for a wall he wants to build
along the border with Mexico. Just in the past few days he had insisted
his hands were tied by law on the issue of family separations even
though his administration implemented a "zero tolerance" policy.
But the volume of condemnation on breaking up families, from inside and
outside the White House, finally overwhelmed Trump.
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President Donald Trump signs an executive order on immigration
policy in the Oval Office of the White House in Washington, U.S.,
June 20, 2018. REUTERS/Leah Millis

NEXT STEPS, LIKELY HEADACHES
Gene Hamilton, counselor to U.S. Attorney General Jeff Sessions, told
reporters the Justice Department will seek changes to a 1997 settlement
known as the Flores agreement, which set nationwide policy for the
detention of minors in the custody of immigration officials.
A federal appeals court has interpreted the Flores agreement to
allow immigration officials to detain families for only 20 days.
Pratheepan Gulasekaram, an immigration law professor at Santa Clara
University, said the Los Angeles federal court with jurisdiction
over the Flores settlement is unlikely to grant the government's
request to modify it.
"There has to be some substantial change in circumstances that
merits a change in the agreement," said Gulasekaram. The judge
previously rejected an Obama administration request to modify the
consent decree in light of a surge of immigrants from Central
America.
"If that wasn't enough to change the agreement then it's not clear
why anything now would be enough either," he said.
Trump's reversal also creates a series of new headaches for the
administration, as it wrestles with where to house families that are
detained together, possibly for long periods, and how to reunite
families that already have been separated.
"This executive order would replace one crisis for another. Children
don't belong in jail at all, even with their parents, under any set
of circumstances. If the president thinks placing families in jail
indefinitely is what people have been asking for, he is grossly
mistaken," Anthony Romero, executive director of the American Civil
Liberties Union, said in a statement.
Parents referred by border agents for prosecution are held in
federal jails, while their children have remained in U.S. Customs
and Border Protection custody or have been moved into facilities
managed by the Office of Refugee Resettlement, a Department of
Health and Human Services agency.

U.S. Customs and Border Protection said on Tuesday that 2,342
children had been separated from their parents at the border between
May 5 and June 9.
The Republican-controlled U.S. Congress is considering legislation
to address the issue. The House of Representatives planned to vote
on Thursday on two bills designed to halt family separations and
address a range of other immigration issues.
Republicans said they were uncertain if either House measure would
have enough votes to pass.
Both House bills, backed by Trump but opposed by Democrats and
immigration advocacy groups, would fund Trump's proposed wall and
reduce legal migration, in part by denying visas for some relatives
of U.S. residents and citizens living abroad.
The more conservative bill would deny the chance of future
citizenship to "Dreamers," who are immigrants brought illegally into
the United States years ago as children.
(Reporting by Roberta Rampton and Steve Holland; additional
reporting by Alison Frankel in New York; Yasmeen Abutaleb, Eric
Beech, Susan Cornwell, Amanda Becker and Mohammad Zargham in
Washington; Gustavo Palencia in Tegucigalpa and Diego Ore in Mexico
City; Writing by John Whitesides and Dan Burns; Editing by Frances
Kerry, James Dalgleish and Grant McCool)
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