From a minor traffic offense to a simple robbery, they have been sufficient arguments for the Trump administration to apply through the justice system its immigration policy that has separated at least 900 children in a period from June 2018 to date.
The American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) filed a lawsuit for this situation that seems to evade measures adopted by the U.S. Justice that deflated the “Zero Tolerance policy. This organization wants the court to clarify definitively the position of Justice in these cases.
In a court filing in the U.S. District of Southern California, the ACLU said that “the government is systematically separating large numbers of families based on minor criminal history, highly dubious allegations of unfitness, and errors in identifying bona fide parent child relationships”
In the filing, the lawyers team of the American Civil Liberties Union, stated that on June 28, 2018 a federal judge of that state,ordered an end to the “Zero Tolerance” policy, which allowed the separation of children detained with their undocumented parents after crossing the Mexican border.
Since then and until June 29, according to the lawsuit, the government authorities “have now separated more than 900 children, including numerous babies.”
It is the intention of the lawyers to know the opinion of the Court as to whether the Executive is disregarding a judicial mandate and to know how it will impart justice to amend what counsel believe is a disregard of the Trump administration.
According to the motion, this practice was based on “criminal history” and on the “unilateral” and “unsupported” decision that the parent “is unfit or a danger” or by “mistakes about the identity of the adult as the child’s parent”.
Based on the highest professional practices, ACLU lawyers request in this context that the Court provide “guidance about permissible criteria to separate families based on criminal history or parental fitness”.
The appeal also reads that the ACLU requests “to reaffirm the basic premise of this Court’s preliminary injunction” that ” that children should not be taken from their parents absent a determination that the parent is genuinely unfit or presents a true danger based on objective facts”
Similarly, given “the ongoing and potentially permanent harm to these children,” the ACLU requested that the court make it clear that there can be no separations “on the basis of criminal history,” regardless of the severity of that history and that they require “more careful steps to verify parentage”.
In concrete terms, the ACLU, with its legal actions and petitions to the high court, seeks to establish guiding principles for resolving current claims, far from its detractor’s opinion who believe they are asking for definitions of “ownership” of separations.
“This issue has reached a critical juncture. Hundreds of children, some literally just babies, are being irreparably damaged because their parents may have committed a minor offense in the past, even a traffic offense,” reads the text.
The situation of immigrant minors has been one of the most questioned points of the Trump Administration which, after the separation of minors, has remained in the eye of the hurricane due to the detention conditions of thousands of these immigrants, most of them unaccompanied.
Following the announcement of the implementation of the “zero tolerance” policy, a measure promoted in May 2018 by former Attorney General Jeff Sessions, more than 2,800 children were separated from their parents last summer, until federal judge Dana Sabraw ordered the reunification of the minors.
Translated by: José Espinoza
Noticias Newswire
