The Trump administration on Thursday informed a federal judge that it isn't responsible for locating deported parents separated forcibly from their children at the southern border.
DOJ said in a court filing that the American Civil Liberties Union, which represents plaintiffs in a class-action lawsuit over family separations, should instead take the lead in reunifying deported parents with their children.
“Plaintiffs’ counsel should use their considerable resources and their network of law firms, NGOs, volunteers, and others, together with the information that defendants have provided (or will soon provide), to establish contact with possible class members in foreign countries,” DOJ said.
The administration suggested that the ACLU find out whether the deported parents wish to be reconnected with their children, or whether they waive that option.
An administration official said Thursday evening that the filing “simply asks the court to require the ACLU to determine the wishes of and fulfill their obligations to their clients, as they have repeatedly represented in court that they would.“
DHS Secretary Kirstjen Nielsen has stated repeatedly that no parents were deported without first being given the option to take their children with them. But a Trump administration official told POLITICO on July 25 that an estimated three-quarters of the parents who left the country alone left no record behind that they ever consented to leave their children in the U.S. "We don't see it in the documentation," the official said.
At a Senate hearing earlier this week, Matthew Albence, executive associate director for Enforcement and Removal Operations at U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement, repeatedly dodged questions about whether DHS could document that it secured deportee parents' consent to leave their children behind.
In Thursday's court filing, the ACLU disputed the Trump administration's claim that it isn't responsible for deportees, saying it “must bear the ultimate burden of finding the parents."
The ACLU said that Trump’s “unconstitutional separation practice” precipitated the crisis and that the federal government possessed far more resources than non-governmental organizations to find the parents.
In addition, the plaintiffs contended that many addresses that the administration provided won’t aid reunification. Some simply said “in DHS custody” or “failed to provide,” according to the ACLU.
The organization estimated that records for 120 parents outside the U.S. — more than one quarter the total deported without their kids — may lack viable addresses.
According to the court filing, some records simply say “calle sin nombre” (street without a name) or list the name of a city.
