We defeated family separation in court, but the fight isn't over yet.

ACLU Supporter –

When we filed Ms. L v. ICE exactly two years ago, we knew what we had uncovered at the border was shocking and unprecedented: A Congolese mother and her six-year-old daughter had been torn apart by ICE for seemingly no reason at all. We didn't know yet that it was just the tip of the iceberg – that there were thousands of Ms. Ls in detention sites across the country, separated from their children.

We blocked family separation as a policy in the summer of 2018, and since then we've managed to reunite over 2,000 families. But the fight to stop separations and reunite families continues.

The Trump administration deported hundreds of parents without their children, and in many cases didn't bother keeping any meaningful contact information. To fill the gap left by the government's failures, we formed a steering committee to locate and reunite these families ourselves. So far we've located hundreds of the deported parents and we'll keep working to find every last one.

Last year, we learned that the administration is using loopholes to continue separating some families – even after the injunction – with excuses including dirty diapers, expired driver's licenses, and other minor offenses that would never justify separation under any U.S. child welfare laws. We're doing everything we can to stop these separations in court.

But reunification often isn't enough. These children and parents have been traumatized by separation, and are at a higher risk of developing depression, anxiety, and other mental health issues. To hold the Trump administration accountable, we filed another lawsuit last year seeking damages for these families, and to create a fund for professional mental health services.

ACLU Supporter, with your help we beat the official family separation practice but as we all know, it's just one part of Trump's anti-immigrant agenda. As the administration continues to attack immigrants' rights any way it can, we'll fight back every step of the way.

Thanks for your support,

Lee Gelernt
Deputy Director of the ACLU Immigrants' Rights Project

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