Washington, June 27 (TNS): A United States judge has ordered that migrant children and their parents who were separated when they crossed into the US should be reunited within 30 days.
The judge issued the injunction in a case stemming from the administration’s “zero-tolerance” immigration policy.
Meanwhile, the policy of breaking up families at the Mexico border is being challenged by 17 US states.
Democratic attorneys general from states including Washington, New York and California launched the lawsuit.
More than 2,300 migrant children have been separated from their parents since early May under the Trump administration’s controversial policy, which seeks to criminally prosecute anyone crossing the border illegally.
Tuesday’s preliminary injunction, issued by a federal judge in San Diego, California, orders the government to reunite parents with their children aged under five within 14 days, and with older ones within 30 days.
The nationwide injunction was issued as part of a case filed by the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) on behalf of a mother who was split from her six-year-old daughter after arriving in the US last year.
Judge Dana Sabraw criticised “responses to address a chaotic circumstance of the government’s own making”.
Court papers filed by the ACLU contained accounts from other parents unable to locate their children after they were separated at the border.
(TNS/BBC)
