Critics have also seized on the nation's immigration court system that requires children — some still in nappies — to have appearances before judges and go through deportation proceedings while separated from their parents.
Such children don't have a right to a court-appointed lawyer, and 90 per cent of kids without a lawyer are returned to their home countries, according to Kids in Need of Defence, a group that provides legal representation.
In Phoenix on Saturday, the Honduran boy named Johan waited over an hour to see the judge. His lawyer told Richardson that the boy's father had brought him to the US but that they had been separated, although it's unclear when. He said the father, who was now in Honduras, was removed from the country under false pretenses that he would be able to leave with his son.
For a while, the child wore dress shoes, but later he was in just socks as he waited to see the judge. He was silent and calm for most of the hearing, though he cried hysterically afterward for the few seconds that a worker handed him to another person while she gathered his nappy bag. He is in the custody of the US Health and Human Services Department in Arizona.
Richardson said the boy's case raised red flags over a looming court-ordered deadline to reunite small children with their families. A federal judge in San Diego gave the agency until Wednesday to reunite kids under 5 with their parents and until July 26 for all others.
Richardson repeatedly told the Immigration and Customs Enforcement lawyer who was acting as the prosecutor that he should make note of the cases involving young children because of the government's obligation to meet the reunification deadline. The lawyer said he wasn't familiar with that deadline and that a different department within ICE handled such matters.
ICE spokeswoman Jennifer Elzea said the lawyer was familiar with the injunction but didn't know the specifics of the timeline requirements off the top of his head "and did not want to misspeak about any timeline commitments without that knowledge."
The agency's Enforcement and Removal Operations is leading the review of cases who are a part of the class impacted by the judge's order, while the rest of the agency is supporting them in the effort to complete it in as efficient and accurate a manner possible.
In the end, Johan was granted a voluntary departure order that would allow the government to fly him to Honduras so that he could be reunited with his family. A lawyer with the Florence Project, an Arizona-based nonprofit that provides free legal help to immigrants, said both his mother and father were in Honduras.
The boy's case was heard on the same day that the Trump Administration said it needed more time to reunite 101 children under 5 years old to ensure the children's safety and to confirm their parental relationships.
The two sides had a hearing on the matter in San Diego and will determine over the weekend which cases merit a delay. Justice Department lawyer Sarah Fabian stressed to the judge that the government is deploying significant resources to ensure that children are being reunited with parents in timely fashion.
- AP
