The Trump administration and the ACLU are at odds over whether the government has met Thursday's court-imposed deadline to reunify nearly 2,600 children separated from parents apprehended at the border.
Government lawyers contend they are on track to reunify more than 1,600 children with parents the government has deemed eligible for reunification by midnight.
But an ACLU attorney on Thursday blasted the Trump administration for excluding 914 parents from the list of deemed eligible for reunification, including as many as 463 parents who may have already been deported without their children, and several hundred others who may have mistakenly waived reunification either because they were pressured by the government or they didn't understand what they were doing.
"I think it’s accurate to say they didn’t meet the deadline. The only deadline they met was their self defined deadline," said Lee Gelernt, deputy director of the ACLU's Immigrants' Rights Project.
The latest count shows that government had reunited 1,442 of the 1,637 children deemed eligible by the government for reunification as of 6 p.m. (EST). Among those still not eligible are 711 children, who include 431 whose parents may have been deported, and 120 with parents who waived reunification.
U.S. District Court Judge Dana Sabraw in San Diego will hold a hearing on Friday to determine whether the government met the deadline and whether to grant a motion filed by the ACLU asking for a stay blocking the government from deporting reunified families for at least seven days.
The ACLU contends the government plans to immediately deport hundreds of reunited families with final removal orders even though they have not had time to discuss legal options with their children or with lawyers, including whether to fight their deportations and seek asylum, whether to be deported together or whether to allow children to remain in the U.S. with relatives to seek asylum on their own.
"The government took these children and separated and many of the children were separated for months and months and months and now the government could at least give them seven days to figure out their options," Gelernt said.
Government lawyers are fighting the 7-day stay, arguing that parents have already had sufficient time to consider legal options, and a stay would interfere with the government's authority to enforce immigration laws.
The ACLU filed a class action lawsuit challenging the Trump administration's separation of families, which were carried out under a zero-tolerance policy aimed at cracking down on illegal immigration, including the tens of thousands of asylum-seeking families who cross the border illegally each year, mostly from poverty and violence-plagued areas of Mexico as well as the Central American countries of Guatemala, El Salvador and Honduras.
Under the policy, immigrants entering the U.S. anywhere other than legal entry points were arrested and their children scattered to Health and Human Services centers across the country for care.
Prior to the Trump policy, immigrants caught entering at non-entry points with children had simply been sent back with the children.
The Trump administration halted the separation of families at the border on June 20 amid withering political pressure and a global outcry.
Shortly after, Sabraw ordered the Trump administration to reunify children under 5 by July 10 and all children by Thursday.
The administration missed its first deadline of reuniting the first group – children younger than 5. The government reunited 57 of the 103 "tender age" children with their parents.