Lawyers have reportedly found the parents of 105 migrant children in the past month after being separated at the U.S.-Mexico border.
A committee of pro-bono lawyers and advocates working to reunify the families said it still had to locate 506 children, NBC reported.
According to the lawyers, the parents of about 322 children out of 506 are believed to have been deported, making it more difficult to find them.
President Joe Biden signed an executive order earlier this month, creating a task force to reunite the families.
“With the first action today we are going to work to undo the moral and national shame of the previous administration that literally, not figuratively, ripped children from the arms of their families at the border and with no plan, none whatsoever, to reunify the children who are still in custody and their parents,” he said.
The task force is chaired by Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas and will meet with Biden regularly.
According to a senior administration official the task force will “work across the U.S. government, with key stakeholders and representatives of impacted families, and with partners across the hemisphere to find parents and children separated by the Trump administration.”
The lawyers said they are willing to work with the task force.
“Defendants believe that the work of the Task Force will resolve many—if not all—outstanding issues in this litigation, and Defendants look forward to working with Plaintiffs with that goal in mind,” the lawyers stated in a filing.
Under the Trump administration’s “zero tolerance” policy, over 3,000 migrant families were reportedly separated.
The Biden administration has received criticism after reopening a facility for migrant children once used by the Trump administration.
White House Press Secretary Jen Psaki claimed it is a “temporary reopening” so the administration “can follow COVID protocols as unaccompanied minors come into the United States,” as IJR reported.
She explained, “This is not kids being kept in cages. This is a facility that was opened that’s going to follow the same standards as other HHS facilities. It is not a replication, certainly not.”
