U.S. border agents are still separating some families at the southern border, groups warn

The Biden administration has reunited hundreds of families separated under the criminal policy of the previous administration. A special task force and attorneys continue their painstaking work, because likely another thousand still remain without their parents after officials with the previous administration never bothered to track the families they were separating. 

But advocates are sounding an urgent alarm about ongoing family separation at the southern border, saying that a U.S. border agent assaulted a Salvadoran mother fleeing violence and separated her from her three children earlier this year. “Lucy,” as she is identified for her own protection, would not be reunited with two of her kids for five months. The third, an 18-year-old stepson, was deported back to El Salvador.

“U.S. Customs and Border Protection (CBP) continues to callously separate families who have fled harm in search of protection,” said Esmeralda Flores, senior policy advocate with the ACLU of San Diego & Imperial Counties. She said border agents’ cruelty “risks permanent separations marked by international borders.”

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