The United States has collected more than 200 immigrant children separated from their parents and families

Washington. Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mallorcas said Thursday that more than 200 children separated from their parents under the government of former US President Donald Trump have been reunited with their families.

“To date, we have reunited more than 200 children separated from their parents, and it is estimated that there are approximately 1,000 more children who are still separated,” he said.

Mayorkas told the House Judiciary Committee that the family reunification task force “has contacted more than 500 parents and there are approximately 400 children in the process of being reunited.”

The Department of Homeland Security continues to contact NGOs to contact families “but one of the biggest obstacles we face (…) is overcoming the mistrust that the previous administration instilled through its harsh policies, and many are still frightened by the trauma they have suffered.”

Under Donald Trump’s “zero tolerance” policy from 2017 to January 2021, thousands of children were separated from their families to prevent the arrival of large numbers of immigrants, mostly from Central America, but many of whom were already reunited during his tenure.

When US President Joe Biden arrived at the White House, he promised a more “humane” immigration policy and created a group to reunite children still separated from their parents.

“We allow them to meet here in the United States and give them humanitarian clearance until they have a certain level of stability for a period of three years, renewable depending on the circumstances of each case,” Mayorcas explained. , who this week attended various House committees to discuss your administration’s budget for the upcoming fiscal year.

He remembered a conversation he had with his mother. “It was very sad to hear a mother talk about that despite the physical reunion, there was a distance between her and her teenage daughter, who was still traumatized by the separation,” she told members of Congress.

Biden supports compensating separated immigrant families, but his administration has abandoned negotiations with lawyers who have sued on behalf of some of them.

The plaintiffs, who are seeking compensation for what they consider to be psychological harm, have announced that they will continue the lawsuit.

Throughout his appearance this week, Mallorcas has insisted that resolving the immigration crisis at the border with Mexico involves addressing the causes of immigration and legislation.

“We have to fix our broken immigration system and (…) it’s broken in many ways,” he reiterated Thursday.

When he arrived at the White House, Biden proposed a path to citizenship for the 11 million illegal immigrants in a country that had not had such a law for 35 years, but it was never voted on.