In the spring of 2018, top U.S. immigration officials under the Trump administration complained that migrant families split up along the southern border were being reunited too quickly, emails released to a federal court this week show.
On May 10, 2018, Matthew Albence, then a top Immigration and Customs and Enforcement official who is now in the private sector, wrote an email raising a concern about the implementation of the"zero-tolerance" policy, which required Border Patrol agents to separate migrant parents from their children for the purpose of prosecuting them for unlawful entry and designating their children as unaccompanied minors, who must be housed by the U.S. refugee agency.
"This will result in a situation in which the parents are back in the exact same facility as their children — possibly in a matter of hours — who have yet to be placed into ORR custody," Albence wrote, referring to the Office of Refugee Resettlement, a division of the Department of Health and Human Services .
On May 25, 2018, Albence received a Friday night email confirming his concern. Tae Johnson, another top ICE official, said border agents in south Texas were reuniting migrant parents with their children after their prosecutions were completed, since the minors were still awaiting placement in a refugee agency shelter.
Guatemalan asylum seeker Hermelindo Che Coc embraces his 6-year-old son, Jefferson Che Pop, after reuniting with him in Los Angeles on July 14, 2018."We can't have this," Albence told other ICE officials in response to Johnson's email, which he forwarded to then Customs and Border Protection Commissioner Kevin McAleenan, top CBP official Ronald Vitiello and Homan the following day at 2:01 a.m. He told them that U.S.
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