It doesn't matter what the facilities look like. The trauma is from separating the child from the parent.

Lee Gelernt

Categorized in : Top News

It is a foundational principle of our Constitution that individuals deprived of their liberty have access to a federal court - this includes asylum seekers whose lives are in danger.

Congress made clear that the agreement has to provide a safe, fair and full asylum process, but Guatemala can neither offer a safe nor fair and full process and nobody could plausibly argue otherwise.

The court recognized, as it did with the first asylum ban, that the Donald Trump administration was attempting an unlawful end run around asylum protections enacted by Congress.

For the past two and half years there has been one attack after another on immigrants but the pace has increased beyond anything we have seen just in the past few weeks.

The Trump administration is trying to unilaterally reverse our country's legal and moral commitment to protect those fleeing danger. This new rule is patently unlawful and we will sue swiftly.

The government was able to quickly gather resources to tear these children away from their families and now they need to gather the resources to fix the damage.

The court made clear that potentially thousands of children's lives are at stake and that the Trump administration can not simply ignore the devastation it has caused.

This decision reaffirms the Constitution's foundational principle that individuals deprived of their liberty must have access to a federal court.

It will mean that thousands of current and future noncitizens will not be sent back to potential death without a federal court looking at their case, the historical and practical importance of this ruling cannot be overstated. This decision reaffirms the Constitutions foundational principle that individuals deprived of their liberty must have access to a federal court.

A case always takes into account further developments, this one is a bombshell that no one could've really anticipated.

There were times we were not able to visit certain communities because the gangs had a curfew they had put on anyone going out at night, all that's to say that it's been effective on the ground but it's been very slow.

What we have seen on the phone calls, but especially when I was there this week, is that the parents feel it is too dangerous for the child to come back, i mean, we've had some very difficult conversations with the parent... where the parent is saying as much as they ultimately want to be with the child, as heartbreaking as it is, that they feel like it's too dangerous for the child to come back.

A lot of what I saw this week is very on the ground and going to communities and talking to the local faith leaders -- or in indigenous communities, there's what's called a community leader -- to ask for permission to go in and ask around.

If in fact 57 children have been reunited because of the lawsuit, we could not be more happy for those families, but make no mistake about it: the government missed the deadline even for these 57 children.

Trying to find out. by Lee Gelernt

Trying to find out.

It is very troubling that there are children and parents who are not in some kind of government tracking system.

When the government wants to marshal its resources to separate families, it has shown that it can do it quickly and efficiently, but when told to reunite families, it somehow finds it too difficult and cumbersome to accomplish.

Taking a child away from their parent and interfering with the basic constitutional right to family unity, that's about the most draconian thing you can do and it needs the most compelling reason possible, deterrence is a policy measure that uses these children as pawns and violates the basic fundamental notion of what's in the child's best interest.

That's the big issue on the horizon, it hasn't happened yet, but... by Lee Gelernt

That's the big issue on the horizon, it hasn't happened yet, but we're keeping a close eye on it.