More than 4,600 children were detained and forcibly separated from their families on the southern border of the country during the Donald Trump administration. Six years later, about one third of them, 1,360 minorsthey continue in unknown whereabouts y They have never been reunited with their parents.. These are the alarming data brought to light by a report from Human Rights Watch published this Monday, which also indicates that the United States Government deliberately separated children from their parents as a deterrent measure so that other migrants would not even try to enter the country irregularly.
“Presumably the Government knows where the children arebut it has never prepared a detailed report on it,” Michael García Bochenek, senior advisor on children’s rights at Human Rights Watch and author of the report, explains to EL PERIÓDICO. “A government should never use children to send a message to parents“he adds.
The US Executive refused to reveal to parents the circumstances and whereabouts of their childrenin many cases for days or weeks, according to the recent report. This would fit the definition of “forced disappearance“according to the study in which the Texas Civil Rights Project (TCRP) and the Lowenstein International Human Rights Clinic at Yale Law School also participated. These forced family separations also could have constituted a crime of tortureunderstood as the intentional infliction of severe suffering for an improper purpose by a state agent. “Even a single case of enforced disappearance or torture constitutes a crime under international law,” the report states.
Los political documents and government emails analyzed by the NGO reveal the intervention by senior officials to keep children separated from their parents even as federal agencies began trying to reunite families quickly. In addition, the minors and their parents interviewed by the organization described having suffered intense anguish, anxiety deep and others traumas diagnosed.
Trump’s return
“The incoming Administration of Trump has said that will return to the policies of his first term hostility towards him migrant. And he has warned that it will even be more repressive“, noted García Bochenek. For prevent that hardness on the border translate necessarily in the family separationHuman Rights Watch pide que those senior officials who participated in these policies cannot run for public office again. For this, appeals to the US Senate to exercise their power reject candidates that the president-elect has nominated for his cabinet.
Quite the contrary, everything indicates that the main positions in immigration policy will be occupied by faithful trumpists of the hardest wing. Highlights include the recently named ‘border tsar‘the Trump, Thomas Homany Matthew Whitakerwhom Trump wants to name US ambassador to NATO. Besides, Stephen Millerwho was an advisor to Trump and helped him design the ban on entry into the US for citizens of predominantly Muslim countries in 2017 and advocated closing the border to asylum seekers citing public health reasons, aspires to be White House chief of staff.
The gaps in the system
Why did this family separation occur? first of all and how to avoid it is the main question that the Working group on family reunification that the president established Joe Biden in 2021. The Administration of his Republican predecessor alleged that migrant detention centers in the US they are in such poor conditions that They are not suitable for children who, instead, were sent to shelters for minors.
However, the Biden administration’s attempt to give families a break on the border has given only half results. In the last four years, some reparation measures have been approved that, although they have not reached all those affected, have allowed temporary status to be granted so that parents who were separated from their children can stay and work while their petitions for asylum were reopened. asylum. However, like the Democratic president Barack Obama was the one who deported the most in modern US historywith Biden, from his same party, the problem has not been solved either.
“Family separation has decreased under Biden but it continues to occur and it has always occurred,” says García Bochenek, who points out that Relatives who are not the parents (grandparents, uncles, brothers) are not covered by the current law. In addition, initiatives such as the family reunification task force are on a countdown, since Trump is expected to disband it upon taking office in the White House.
