Reuniting children with parents already deported.

U.S. wants help finding parents deported without their children

(Reuters) - The U.S. government told a federal court judge on Thursday that volunteers and non-profit groups, rather than government officials, should take the lead in locating more than 400 immigrant parents who were separated from their children at the U.S.-Mexico border and deported from the United States.

The proposal came in a San Diego Federal Court lawsuit challenging some 2,500 family separations initiated by the Trump administration as part of its “zero tolerance” policy to curb illegal immigration.

In the case, brought by the American Civil Liberties Union, Judge Dana Sabraw ordered the government to reunify the families by July 26, but that deadline was not fully met.

While more than 1,900 children have been reunited with their families, or seen their cases resolved in other ways, hundreds remain separated, including the children of more than 400 parents no longer in the United States, according to the government’s latest filing.

In its plan for reuniting those families, filed with the court on Thursday, attorneys from the Department of Justice said that the government would supply what information it had about the deported parents to the plaintiffs’ attorneys.

At that point, the filing said, “plaintiffs’ counsel should use their considerable resources and their network of law firms, NGOs, volunteers, and others,” to establish contact with deported parents and determine their wishes.

The ACLU has repeatedly said that it would assist with efforts to find the deported parents, but the group made clear in Thursday’s filing that it expected the U.S. government to bear ultimate responsibility for locating them.

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