Parents who were deported without their children at the height of the family separation crisis in 2018 have been allowed to present themselves for asylum.
A group of 29 parents who had 27 children removed from them and were then deported at the height of the family separation crisis in the US last year have been allowed to cross back into the country to seek asylum and reunite with their family members.
The parents, who travelled across Central America to the Mexicali border crossing, were made to wait 10 hours before they were allowed to present themselves for asylum. During tense negotiations, prominent public figures including Hillary Clinton agitated on their behalf.
The plight of the parents and their missing children is an indication that the family separation crisis that erupted last summer is continuing to have ramifications for hundreds of people. Thousands of children were separated from their parents in 2018 as a result of a “zero-tolerance” policy imposed by American President Donald Trump. Many families were reunited after President Trump was forced to retract the policy in the face of national and international outrage, but several hundreds have yet to be brought back together, and despite the invalidity of the policy, civil rights groups report that migrant families are still being separated at the border although it is claimed by the government that this is only done in specific cases such as where violent criminal behaviour is exhibited by a parent.
