6 May 2021
President Joe Biden’s border chief, Alejandro Mayorkas, is using the little-known “parole” side door in border law to bring legally deported migrants back for televised reunions with their left-behind, asylum-seeking children.
“Our highest priority is to reunite these families … It’s not about righting the wrong of the past, it’s about restoring the conscience of our government,” Mayorkas said he touted his return of four deported migrants in a May 4 appearance on MSNBC.
The parole side-door “is a very limited authority that Congress has given for exceptional situations,” responded Andrew Arthur, a former immigration judge who now works with the Center for Immigration Studies. The parole door “is very narrowly written [for small numbers of people], but the administration has blown right past the limitations,” he said.
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This week, four parents from Honduras, Guatemala and Mexico were reunited with their children in the United States after being separated under former President Trump’s “zero tolerance” immigration policy. They were the first families to be reunited on U.S. soil since the Biden administration began its reunification process. “Although we love to see the reunifications and they’re very moving, we have to keep in mind what led to that and that it should never have happened in the first place,” says Carol Anne Donohoe, managing attorney for the Family Reunification Project at Al Otro Lado. We also speak with Lee Gelernt, deputy director of the ACLU Immigrants’ Rights Project, who leads the ACLU’s lawsuit over family separations. He notes more than 1,000 children are still separated from their parents, and adds, “We have not even found the parents of 455 children.”
A mom and son sobbed as they reunited at the border after 3 years apart localnews8.com - get the latest breaking news, showbiz & celebrity photos, sport news & rumours, viral videos and top stories from localnews8.com Daily Mail and Mail on Sunday newspapers.
Updated: 10:05 PM CDT May 5, 2021 By Catherine E. Shoichet, CNN Bryan Chávez carried a bundle of Mother s Day balloons as he headed toward the border.It had been more than three years since the last time he saw his mom in person the day when authorities separated them in 2017. Chávez was 15 at the time, and he feared this moment would never come. Even after he recently learned they d finally be reunited, he couldn t believe it. I was like. am I actually going to see her today or not? Chavez said. Because you never know. I was just in the car and I was just thinking, it just sounds unreal. Chávez and his mom, Sandra Ortíz, were among thousands of migrant families split up during the Trump administration. And this week, they were in the first group of families that the Biden administration said it plans to reunite as part of a new task force s reunification efforts.A video of their dramatic reunion released by advocacy group Families Belong Together shows the