An unknown number of parents have already been deported without their children. Wherever they are living or being held, it can be difficult for parents and families to connect with a caseworker on the federal hotline set up to reunify families. Parents will have to work with consulates and family members back home to produce identification documents that can prove they are the parents of a child.

…El Paso County Commissioner Vince Perez, whose precinct includes Tornillo, the so-called tent city where more than 300 children are being held, has been sharply critical of the use of the jail to hold immigrant detainees. “Depriving refugees of their children as a matter of policy is vile and we should not condone or facilitate this practice,” Perez said.

Taylor Levy, legal coordinator for Annunciation House, said staff would try as hard as they could to help the parents find their children.

“We know that’s going to be the first question that all these parents are going to have,” Levy said. “They’re all really worried about their children.”

Here’s how hard it is to trace a migrant kid who has been separated from his mom

sigh…