‘Deleted’ families: What went wrong with Trump’s family-separation effort

The following article by Nick Miroff, Amy Goldstein and Maria Sacchetti was posted on the Washington Post website July 28, 2018:

Hundreds of migrant children remain in custody after the Trump administration scrambled to reunite separated families under a court-imposed deadline. (Jon Gerberg/The Washington Post)

When a federal judge ordered the Trump administration to reunify migrant families separated at the border, the government’s cleanup crews faced an immediate problem.

They weren’t sure who the families were, let alone what to call them.

Customs and Border Protection databases had categories for “family units,” and “unaccompanied alien children” who arrive without parents. They did not have a distinct classification for more than 2,600 children who had been taken from their families and placed in government shelters.

View the complete article here.