The nationwide injunction issued late on Tuesday by US District Judge Dana Sabraw in San Diego will not be the final word on a heated battle over the treatment of immigrant families who cross the border illegally. A government appeal is likely.
A US judge has blocked the Trump administration from separating immigrant parents and children at the US-Mexico border and ordered that those who were separated be reunited within 30 days.
Sabraw’s preliminary injunction also requires the government to reunite children under the age of five with their parents within 14 days, and let children talk with their parents within 10 days.
More than 2,300 migrant children were separated from their parents as a result of the administration’s “zero tolerance“ policy that began in early May and sought to prosecute all adults crossing the border without authorization, including those traveling with children.
The separations sparked widespread condemnation in the United States, including from within President Donald Trump’s own Republican Party, and abroad.
Although Trump issued an executive order on June 20 to end the family separations, the American Civil Liberties Union, which brought the San Diego case, said it contained “loopholes“ and did little to fix the problem. Some 2,000 children remain separated.
Sabraw, an appointee of former Republican President George W. Bush, rebuked the administration.
“The facts set forth before the court portray reactive governance responses to address a chaotic circumstance of the government’s own making,” he wrote. “They belie measured and ordered governance, which is central to the concept of due process enshrined in our Constitution.”
The White House had no immediate comment.
Source: Times Live
