Over 1,300 Children Have Never Been Reunited With…

Over 1,300 Children Have Never Been Reunited With Their Parents Years After Being Separated At The Border

Over 4,600 children were separated from their families between 2017 and 2021, and 30% of them remain unaccounted for (Credit: PATRICK T. FALLON/AFP via Getty Images)

As many as 1,360 children separated from their parents under the Trump administration's "Zero Tolerance" policy have not been reunited six years after the controversial practice began.

A joint report by Human Rights Watch, the Texas Civil Rights Project (TCRP), and Yale Law School's Lowenstein International Human Rights Clinic highlights the lasting harm caused by the policy and labels the situation an "enforced disappearance" that may also constitute torture under international law.

The 135-page report details the deliberate separation of over 4,600 children from their families between 2017 and 2021 as part of a strategy to deter irregular migration. The 1,360 figure accounts for some 30% of the children separated during Donald Trump's first administration.

Officials often failed to inform parents of their children's whereabouts for days or weeks, leaving families in anguish. Michael Garcia Bochenek, a senior children's rights counsel at Human Rights Watch, described the policy as "calculated cruelty."

Internal communications revealed that senior officials prioritized maintaining separations over reunifications, even as federal agencies sought to reunite families. "We need to take away children," then-Attorney General Jeff Sessions reportedly told prosecutors in May 2018, according to Human Rights Watch.

The separation policy implemented under Trump's administration prosecuted parents for "improper entry" and treated their children as unaccompanied minors, transferring them to the Office of Refugee Resettlement. A 2018 court order halted the systematic separations.

Now, on the verge of his second term in the White House, Trump continues to outline his plans to conduct mass deportation, suggesting his solution to avoid separating families with undocumented parents is deporting them all together. "I don't want to be break up families, so the only way you don't break up the family is you keep them together and you have to send them all back", President-elect said in an interview this month.

Inhumane Conditions

Separated children were held in overcrowded, freezing cells often referred to as "dog kennels" or "hieleras" (freezers). They lacked adequate food, hygiene supplies, and supervision, Human Rights Watch outlines. In one instance, older children had to care for a toddler who had been left in diapers for days. Guards often ignored crying children or subjected them to verbal abuse, with some children describing the conditions as "like being treated as trash."

The trauma of abrupt separation inflicted lasting damage. Children interviewed described intense anxiety, nightmares, and feelings of abandonment. Health professionals warned that such separations could cause severe, lifelong psychological harm.

The government's record-keeping during the policy's implementation was deeply flawed. Systems failed to link children with their parents, leading one federal judge to observe that migrant children were "not accounted for with the same efficiency and accuracy as property."

The Biden administration's Family Reunification Task Force, created in 2021, has taken steps to address the matter, allowing some parents to remain temporarily in the U.S. and providing limited mental health support. Critics argue these measures fall short of providing comprehensive redress.

The report urges a full reckoning with the human rights violations, including public apologies, compensation, expanded mental health services and criminal accountability for those responsible. Danny Woodward, a TCRP attorney, also calls for "permanent residence" for affected families.

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