The following article by Nick Miroff and Samantha Schmidt was posted on the Washington Post website July 26, 2018:
For some seeking asylum, family separations were worth the risk: ‘Whatever it took, we had to get to this country’ (Zoeann Murphy, Jorge Ribas/The Washington Post)
At the expiration of a court deadline to reunite migrant families separated during its “zero tolerance” border crackdown, the Trump administration said Thursday that it has delivered 1,442 children to parents detained in immigration custody, and is on track to return all of those deemed eligible for reunification.
But 711 children remain in government shelters because their parents have criminal records, their cases remain under review or the parents are no longer in the United States, officials said. They added that 431 parents of those children have been deported.
Chris Meekins, an official at the Department of Health and Human Services, which has led the reunification effort, told reporters that “hundreds of staff have worked 24/7” to meet the court’s 30-day deadline. Administration officials said they would work with the court to figure out how to return the remaining children, including those whose parents have been deported.