Thread by @lomikriel

This is Briana. @CBP took her from her dad at the border in March. US attorneys accused him, w/o presenting evidence, of being MS-13. He had been deported from the US at 18. A year after Trump 'ended' his separation policy, +700 kids have been separated.
tinyurl.com/y4dc8wlv

“The government is deciding parents are a danger and then separating them without informing the children’s facilities that the child has been separated, without telling the parent the basis of the separation, and w/o affording due process to the family to contest the separation."

.@realDonaldTrump ostensibly ended his practice of broadly separating migrant families at the border, and a federal judge constrained how it can do so. But he left giant legal loopholes: If the government decides the parent is a criminal, in a gang, or a danger to the child.

Separations have again skyrocketed, just not under the premise of the initial government policy: that parents entered illegally and under 'zero tolerance' had to be prosecuted. (Which was always a bit of a farce; most parents got time served, but weren't reunited w/ kids after.)

“In the last few months these types of separations have risen drastically,” said Lee Gelernt, lead lawyer for @ACLU case. “The government is trying to drive a truck through what was supposed to be a very narrow exception.”

In stats released to @HoustonChron, @ACFHHS detailed the reasons parents were separated post the Ms. L court injunction (graphic: @kenduque @DugBegley ) Separations for gang/crimes skyrocketed.

But often, those allegations were not substantiated. See the case of Carlos Arias, who the government said was MS-13, then quietly allowed his release last month to be with his kids: tinyurl.com/y3ra8qa

From the beginning of the government's policy in June 2017, the government has not been upfront. @HoustonChron first wrote about separations in El Paso in Nov 2017: tinyurl.com/y8uot8z2 This is what they said then:

In a court in Dec. 2017, they threatened separated parents might be charged with smuggling:
"Although the Defendants are only currently charged with illegal entry, their admitted conduct satisfies the elements of the felony offense of alien smuggling,"
tinyurl.com/yyk3pma8

That the US was broadly separating immigrant parents and children didn't get national attention until then Attorney General Jeff Sessions announced it in April 2018. By then, parents already had been deported without their children.
tinyurl.com/y7c4jab4

The initiative was a disaster, not only because it outraged the nation & world & deported + 500 parents without their children, but on a basic level, the havoc it caused in federal border courts, who were overwhelmed from prosecuting more serious crimes.
tinyurl.com/y8985uqt

One mother had been deported without her daughter and was back in El Salvador where gangs had sliced off her father's ear.
“I will never be OK,” she said in a brief text exchange. “I am here in El Salvador without my daughter.”
tinyurl.com/y5u4evar

After the president's executive order and the @ACLU court injunction, separations slowed as the frantic court-ordered effort to reunite thousands of immigrant families began. (It is still ongoing.) But many separated families were not included.

In January, @OIGatHHS report confirmed what @HoustonChron reported in 2017: thousands had been separated before the policy began last spring. The judge ordered the government to account for those families, like Sara Caal. That exhausting effort is ongoing.
tinyurl.com/yy8rjy2v

A year since the injunction, +700 families, mostly parents and kids, have been separated. The government said they are all justified removals because the parents are either a danger to the children or criminals. But who is deciding that? On what grounds? tinyurl.com/y4dc8wlv

“When it happened under prior administrations there were usually strong indicators of real and legitimate child welfare concerns. What we’re seeing right now is of an entirely different character. These are gratuitous separations.” @NILC
tinyurl.com/y4dc8wlv

Advocates and attorneys say that despite the injunction and a supposedly improved tracking system, very little information is shared about separated children. Often, it's not even marked in a government portal that they were separated at all.

One federal judge has had enough: “Have we decided all of a sudden in this country that parents have nothing to do with their children? If it means I’m not taking a guilty plea from someone who doesn’t know where their child is ..that’s a coerced plea.” tinyurl.com/y4dc8wlv

In the end, little Briana was deported back to El Salvador with her father, whom, despite all the government accusations against him, the advocates in charger of her care decided wasn't a danger.
tinyurl.com/y4dc8wlv
CC: @DugBegley