Migrant Children Must Be Reunited With Parents Immediately, Mental Health Experts Say
Although President Donald Trump ended his family separation policy, there's no plans to address the children that have already been taken from their parents. Some advocates have suggested that public genetic testing sites could aid in the process of reuniting families. Meanwhile, there's profit to be made off the health care needs of those held at the border. And chaos reigns supreme even after the president's executive order.
The Hill:
Dems, Health Groups Demand Immigrant Children Be Quickly Reunited With Families
Democrats and medical professionals on Thursday called for children separated from their families at the border to be immediately reunited to minimize any long-term harm to their mental and physical health. “The executive order President Trump signed yesterday does not resolve this crisis that he created,” said Democratic Whip Steny Hoyer (Md.) at a press conference with representatives of health groups. (Hellmann, 6/21)
Stat:
Could Genetic Testing Help Reunite Separated Immigrant Families?
Amid the family separation crisis at the U.S. border, some concerned observers have floated an idea: Could direct-to-consumer genealogy companies offer free genetic testing to reunite children with their parents?J ust as commercial spit kits have brought together long-lost cousins or unknown siblings, the thinking goes, they might also be able to help in the current crisis. The executive order President Trump signed on Wednesday to end the administration’s policy, after all, does not address the predicament of the over 2,300 children who have already been separated from their parents. (Robbins, 6/21)
Modern Healthcare:
Immigrant Detention Crisis Could Yield Profit For Some Providers And Payers
As Congress flounders in another messy immigration debate, medical contracts worth hundreds of millions of dollars could grow amid the fallout of President Donald Trump's executive order to halt his own policy to separate families illegally entering the country. Healthcare for detained immigrants—both children and adults—is a sprawling, confusing system where various government agencies contract with networks of doctors and community hospitals. It is also an expensive system whose costs are hard to predict and manage since they are based on unexpected surges in people crossing the border. (Luthi, 6/21)
The New York Times:
No Relief In Sight For Parents Of Thousands Of Migrant Children Still In Custody
Micaela Samol Gonzalez, dressed in blue detention scrubs, made her way to the front of a windowless courtroom in Colorado on Thursday and faced the judge. After she gave her name and arranged a future court date for her immigration case, the judge asked whether she had any questions. She had just one. (Healy, 6/21)
The Washington Post:
The Chaotic Effort To Reunite Immigrant Parents With Their Separated Kids
Each of the mothers had a different memory of the moment she was separated from her child. For some, it was outside a Border Patrol station just north of the Rio Grande, shortly after being apprehended. For others, it was after an interrogation by federal authorities in a bitterly cold air-conditioned office. Jodi Goodwin, an attorney in Harlingen, Tex., has heard more than two dozen variations of those stories from Central American mothers who have been detained for days or weeks without their children. So far, she has not been able to locate a single one of their offspring. (Sieff, 6/21)
The Associated Press:
Confusion And Uncertainty At The Border After Trump Acts
The U.S. government wrestled with the ramifications Thursday of President Donald Trump’s move to stop separating families at the border, with no clear plan to reunite the more than 2,300 children already taken from their parents and Congress again failing to take action on immigration reform. In a day of confusion and conflicting reports, the Trump administration began drawing up plans to house as many as 20,000 migrants on U.S. military bases. But officials gave differing accounts as to whether those beds would be for children or for entire families. (Merchant, Bryan and Long, 6/21)
The New York Times:
U.S. Prepares Housing Up To 20,000 Migrants On Military Bases
The United States is preparing to shelter as many as 20,000 migrant children on four American military bases, a Pentagon spokesman said on Thursday, as federal officials struggled to carry out President Trump’s order to keep immigrant families together after they are apprehended at the border. The 20,000 beds at bases in Texas and Arkansas would house “unaccompanied alien children,” said a Pentagon spokesman, Lt. Col. Michael Andrews, although other federal agencies provided conflicting explanations about how the shelters would be used and who would be housed there. There were reports of widespread confusion on the border. (Shear, Cooper and Benner, 6/21)
Reuters:
Immigration Detainees Influx Squeezes Healthcare At California Prison: Workers
An influx of hundreds of immigration detainees at a U.S. prison in California is straining its medical staff and raising concerns about the adequacy of healthcare for detainees and inmates, several employees at the prison have told Reuters. The Victorville Federal Correctional Institution, a prison for convicted criminals about 85 miles northeast of Los Angeles, is temporarily housing up to 1,000 men detained by federal immigration officials as a result of the U.S. administration's crackdown on illegal border crossings. (Lynch, 6/21)
Reuters:
'Are You The Mother?' A Woman's Search For Baby Taken By U.S. Immigration
It took 85 days for Olivia Caceres to retrieve her baby boy, pulled from his father's arms at the U.S. border, a traumatic experience many more parents face to reunite with children separated under President Donald Trump's immigration policies. Now nearly 20 months old, Mateo was returned to his family on Feb. 8 after a battle across borders, officialdom and languages. He was filthy and terrified of the dark, his mother said. Months later, the boy still screeches even as Caceres rocks him on her chest, sometimes until dawn. (6/21)
The New York Times:
16 And Alone, Inside A Center For Separated Children In New York
It was just three weeks ago that the 16-year-old was detained by immigration agents in Texas after traveling with his father to the United States. The father was deported back to Guatemala. The child was sent to New York. Today, he sits in a children’s residence, one of an estimated 700 young people who have been placed with child care agencies in New York since President Trump announced his “zero tolerance” policy of separating children from family members when they are apprehended at the southern border. (McKinley, Robbins and Correal, 6/21)
Texas Tribune:
Texas Shelter Operator Says It Knows The Locations Of The Parents Of Separated Children In Its Care
Confusion over the fate of families that were separated by the federal government at the U.S-Mexico border continues to reign, but the Texas-based company that houses nearly half of all undocumented children in federal custody said Thursday that it knows where the parents of all its separated children are located. The children are allowed to be in contact with those parents, as long as the separate federal facility where the parents are being held allows it, according to Alexia Rodriguez, vice president of immigrant children's services for Southwest Key Programs, the nonprofit company that shelters the children. (Cobler and Platoff, 6/21)
Texas Tribune:
Texas Mayors Try To Visit Tent City Holding Immigrant Children And Get Few Answers
A trip by a group of mayors to the port of entry Thursday, spearheaded by the U.S. Conference of Mayors, yielded no new information about what, if anything, will change inside the detention center for immigrant children after President Donald Trump signed an executive order to end family separations on Wednesday. (Aguilar, 6/21)
