The Biden administration has identified over 3,900 children who were separated from their parents at the United States-Mexico border during Donald Trump’s presidency. On Tuesday (June 8), the Family Reunification Task Force announced the news and said it has identified “nearly all” of the children separated from their families under the previous administration’s zero-tolerance illegal crossing policy.
However, the American Civil Liberties Union has said that over 5,500 children were separated from their parents at the border. The task force said Tuesday that it is still working to review another 1,723 cases; which would bring the total number of children closer to the ACLU’s reported number.
According to The Grio; the 1,723 cases were excluded from the task force’s initial investigation because the children were separated from their parents for reasons other than Trump’s zero-tolerance policy. The task force said it would also widen the scope and look to identify any children who may have been separated from their families during the first six months of Trump’s presidency, which wouldn’t have been included in the ACLU’s tally.
Of the 3,913 children that were identified by the task force; 1,786 have now been reunited with their families. Parents of 1,965 children have not yet been reunited with their kids, but have been contacted about their whereabouts. The majority of the children, 2,270; were from Guatemala, the report showed. A total of 1,150 children were from Honduras; 281 from El Salvador; 75 came from Mexico; 74 from Brazil and 23 hailed from Romania.
The report also showed which border patrol stations separated the most children from their parents. The border patrol agency in Yuma, Arizona recorded 1,114 separations; while 1,025 children were taken from their parents in Rio Grande Valley, Texas. The third-most separations occurred at the El Paso, Texas, sector with 982 separated children.
President Biden launched the task force in February and said reuniting families would be a priority for his administration.
“When we reunited the first seven families last month, I said that this was just the beginning,” Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas said in a statement. “In the coming weeks, we will reunify 29 more families.”