Accelerate Reunification of Families Separated by U.S.’s Zero Tolerance Immigration Policy
Enlist the International Commission on Missing Persons (ICMP) for Reunification of Thousands of Families Torn Apart at the U.S.-Mexico Border.
Family Reunification Task Force Fails to Reunify At Least 1,304 Children
In February 2, 2021, President Biden signed Executive Order (E.O.) 14011 to form a Department of Homeland Security (DHS)-funded inter-agency Family Reunification Task Force with the goal of accelerating the reunification of thousands of families illegally separated by the Trump Administration’s Zero Tolerance Immigration Policy at the U.S.-Mexico Border between January 20, 2017 and January 20, 2021. Eligible families for reunification, relocation, and trauma services belong to the Ms. L. et al. v. U.S. Immigration and Customs Enf (June 2018) Court defined class and exclude families with parents deemed unfit, dangerous, or have a communicable disease or any criminal history.
Outreach to separated families is provided by Ms. L. Steering Committee members, including the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) and Kids In Need of Defense (KIND). Families are encouraged to registration at Together.gov / Juntos.gov and have eligibility confirmed by the Task Force to begin the reunification process, including document searching across the DHS, Department of Health and Human Services (HHS), and the Department of Justice (DOJ); and in limited cases, adult-to-child (one:one) DNA testing to confirm biological kinship.
Within the first fourteen months of Task Force reunifications, the March 31, 2022 Progress Report tracking the status of 1,659 eligible children confirms less than 9% have been reunified — a mere 147 children total. While less than 13% (208 children) have an unknown status, the vast majority at nearly 79% (1,304) remain separated, including those confirmed to not be reunified (56.1%, 931) and those in the process of reunification but have yet to be reunited (22.5%, 373).
Challenges to Reunification: A Lack of Documentation and Trust
Lack of Documentation
Ms. L. Court documents in June 2018 established that no plan or system was in place to track separated families for the purpose of eventual reunification. A Joint Status Report to the Court on December 2020 further documents Federal Respondents’ delay in providing ACLU critical basic information necessary to begin the reunification process for families.
A 2021 Review from the Inspector General details the stunning lack of centralized communication and documentation to track adults and children between and across DHS, DOJ, and HHS. Continued failures of these U.S. federal executive departments is further outlined by the Center for Immigration Studies, including failures to respond to mounting evidence that documenting and tracking separated families was insufficient.
The June 2, 2021 Task Force Progress Report acknowledges ongoing challenges of data coordination between HHS and DHS to identify parent-child relationships and obtain separation information critical to reunification. Some parent-child deportations occurred at separate times and locations; and data on children after their release to a sponsor does not exist.
Lack of Trust
An April 2022 report by Physicians for Human Rights details the irreparable psychological trauma inflicted on separated families by the U.S. Government. They emphasize families’ enduring distrust in government agencies resulting from unlawful torture and breaches of international and domestic law. Their findings build on those previously provided in both Ms. L. Court documents and by the Inspector General’s review.
Yet the Task Force registration websites state that registrant information, like current contact information and current country, will be shared with national security and law enforcement agencies, including DHS’s Immigration and Customs Enforcement and Customs and Border Protection - the very agencies involved in victimizing these families.
Though one:one DNA testing for kinship has been legally employed during some reunifications facing documentation barriers, ethicists and genetic counselors have warned against wide-spread use by the U.S. Government in this vulnerable group. Concerns include the U.S. Governments’ storage and future use or weaponization of genetic information. Nonetheless, attorneys have reported DNA sample collection has occurred in a process devoid of transparency.
Policy Recommendation: Leverage ICMP Services to Accelerate Trustworthy Reunifications.
DNA testing is likely necessary to circumvent documentation voids; but a lack of trust in the U.S. Government makes Federal agencies or NGOs within their legal reach unlikely to be an effective program administrator. Therefore, Task Force funding should be re-directed to the International Commission on Missing Persons (ICMP) to enlist their services for reunification.
ICMP is a treaty-based intergovernmental organization that operates independently of member nations and retains the legal immunity to safeguard against government seizure of sensitive data, like genetic information. They are globally recognized for their technical, legal and ethical proficiency in the use of DNA testing to identify missing persons in the aftermath of disasters. Within the U.S., their expertise was leveraged in 2001 after the World Trade Center attacks; and their services were enlisted in 2005 after Hurricane Katrina to collect and process DNA for victim identification.
ICMP software technologies include website enrollment, case tracking, and secure web-based messaging to communicate and obtain results. But their most powerful tools are their database approaches to identification. To assist with DNA kinship-testing, their database-wide searches for DNA matches across all participating individuals provide a substantial decrease in time and increase in efficiency to matching over traditional one:one testing previously used in the reunification process. To assist in reunification of families without a biological link, their databases are capable of integrating many forms of non-DNA based identification data, including their recently added MyFace tool for photograph-based identification, to discover and substantiate relationship-matches.
Taken together, ICMP offers an accelerated and trustworthy pathway as a superior alternative to the current Family Reunification Task Force efforts to finally reunify separated families.
