Three years after Donald Trump officially stopped separating migrating families at the border, hundreds of kids have yet to be reunited with their parents. Now that U.S. president Joe Biden is in office, he’s taking steps towards undoing the former administration’s inhumane policy. But unfortunately, a big hurdle to making happy reunions are the challenges in finding deported parents. Watch the video above to find out why it’s hard to locate the missing parents.
Enter first lady Jill Biden, who will lead a task force devoted to getting families together again. The White House announcement about Biden and her task force came on Friday.
More than 628 children are still apart from their families. These children are in foster care or are staying with distant family members, but before that, they were detained in conditions that an eyewitness described as appalling.
“What I saw there was little children sitting on concrete floors covered by Mylar blankets supervised by security contractors in a watchtower,” journalist Jacob Soboroff said on MSNBC. “It makes me sick every time I recall it.”
The now president previously condemned the ordeal thousands of families went through.
“Their kids were ripped from their arms and separated ... those kids are alone,” he said during the second presidential debate last year. “Nowhere to go. Nowhere to go. It’s criminal.”
Jill Biden’s decision to take on this new role a stark contrast to how her predecessor allegedly showed apathy about the heartbreaking conditions endured by children separated from their families at the border in detainment camps.
Former first lady Melania Trump infamously wore a jacket with the words “I really don’t care. Do U?” written on her back during a border-facility visit in 2018. She was also secretly caught on tape making a profanity-laden remark directed at people appalled by the circumstances migrant children were in.
Notably, Biden is trusting her second-in-command with tracking how many families are reunited. Her chief of staff, Julissa Reynoso, is a first-generation immigrant from the Dominican Republic with a background in law.
Reynoso visited a refugee camp last December, which made a lasting impression on her, according to CNN.
“It’s not who we are as Americans. We are a welcoming nation, but that’s not the message that we’re sending at the border. We’re saying, ‘Stop. Don’t come in,’” she said.
This stance falls in line with what advocates are telling the U.S. president. As the video above shows, many say all migrant families who suffered the trauma of separation should now be granted U.S. citizenship.
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