Twenty-five children packed the benches of Phoenix immigration court Friday morning, where lawyers told the judge that more than a third of them are waiting to be reunited with their families.
The judge worked quickly, setting new court dates and asking the children who wanted to be sent home if anyone there would hurt them.
One boy waiting to reunite with his parents spoke more of an indigenous dialect than Spanish. The 17-year-old is likely among the kids ages 5 and up, who a federal judge in California has ordered reunited with family by July 26.
RELATED: Kids Under 5 With Deported Parents Yet To Be Reunited
The government has already struggled to reunite families, said Mark Greenberg, senior fellow with the Migration Policy Institute in Washington, D.C.
“There wasn’t seemingly any system in the first place for keeping track of the numbers of separated families,” he said.
There are between 2,000 and 3,000 kids who still need to be reunified with family, Greenberg said.
