A federal judge in California has given President Donald Trump’s administration until 5 p.m. Saturday to come up with a list of all children under age five who still need to be reunited with their migrant parents.
The judge wants the list to include specific reasons why the government can’t make the July 10 court-ordered deadline for reuniting all children under five with their parents.
A lawyer for the government told the judge that there are 101 children under age five who still need to be reunited with their parents. About half of them will be back together by the deadline. But parents of other kids have been either deported or released from detention, and the government can’t guarantee they’ll be back with their children on time.
“We believe the government can meet those deadlines if they continue to treat this as an urgent matter, which they must,” said Lee Gelernt, deputy director of the ACLU’s Immigrants' Rights Project. “They created this mess. They need to fix it.”
The ACLU will work with the government on individual cases, if it gives specific reasons for not meeting next week’s deadline, Gelernt said.
A Justice Department spokesman did not comment.