Hundreds of children separated from their parents at the US-Mexico border remain far away from them, including 497 who are in government custody, according to a new file filed Thursday.
The figure includes 22 children under the age of 5 who are still under government care. Six of them are 4 years old or younger and their parents were deported without them.
A total of 1,937 children have reunited with their parents, 14 of them last week.
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The judicial presentation of the Department of Justice and the case of the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) describe a slow and cumbersome process to try to reunify families that have been separated.
It is still unclear how many parents were exactly deported without their children, although it is about hundreds. According to the government's most recent count, there are 322 deported parents who have children still in custody in the United States.
But the ACLU, which filed the lawsuit on behalf of the separated parents, ensures that the administration previously gave it a list of deported parents that includes 70 additional cases. The administration said, according to the ACLU, that part of the discrepancy is because the children were removed from care. It is not clear what will happen to these families.
The government says it has contacted the vast majority of deported parents, but the ACLU says many of those parents have not yet been contacted. Of all the deported parents who were alerted to the ACLU, the network of law firms and non-governmental organizations working on the effort has spoken with 279 so far, the ACLU said.
A little over 40 have reached the final phase of the process: ACLU determines exactly what parents and children want to do about their reunification.
Even reuniting children who agreed to return to their countries of origin has proved difficult.
The problem is that there are two separate cases: one that represents the parents and another that protects the children. Federal Judge Dana Sabraw has suspended the deportation of children pending a case in which it is argued that they have their own rights to apply for asylum in the United States.
Government lawyers say that many of the children want to be sent home and have agreed to leave voluntarily, but the lawyers who represent the entire group of children have been slow to sign out according to the judge's order.
An organization supported by Mark Zuckerberg helps separated immigrant families
The remaining children who are separated have parents who refused reunification or parents who represent some type of security risk, according to the government.
The judge will hold a state hearing on the case on Friday.
Earlier this summer, the judge set the deadline of July 26 to reunify all families that were separated at the border. The deported parents have remained the most difficult group to gather.