Two Central American migrant children sent to Connecticut after being separated from their parents at the border have been reunited with their parents and the families released into the community.
The United States Department of Justice earlier Monday said that Immigration and Customs Enforcement would parole the parents and release them from federal custody.
One of the kids is a 14 year old girl from El Salvador and the other is a nine-year old boy from Honduras.
They are the plaintiffs in a lawsuit against the government over the separation that happened at the Texas border. Friday, a judge in Bridgeport ruled that the Trump administration violated the constitutional rights of the children when it took them away from their parents and sent them to a detention facility in Groton.
The judge ordered the government to take steps to repair what it had done to the children— reuniting them with their parents for court hearings and allowing them to see each other daily through video conferencing. But, the attorney representing the kids told Connecticut Public Radio this past weekend that it wouldn’t be enough.
“For that, we need to go the next step and that is immediate release and reunification of both family units so that they can heal from the trauma inflicted on them by this wrong-headed and illegal family separation policy,” said Joshua Perry.
On Monday, federal Immigration and Customs Enforcement granted the parents immediate parole for a “urgent humanitarian reason or significant public benefit,” meaning they could be reunited with their kids.
Senator Richard Blumenthal said the reunification wouldn’t have happened without court action.
“This reuniting of these children with their parents is the direct result of court orders, which were the main reason why the department of justice respected basic humanity and human rights,” Blumenthal said.
Perry, the attorney representing the children, is not sure where the families will live upon being released into the community. Wherever they go, the families are still subject to the discretion of the federal government as they wait for a ruling on their asylum status.
