Federal contractors working to reunite families separated at the border asked about the religious affiliation of at least two immigrant women seeking to get their children back, according to court documents and an attorney involved in one of the interviews.

The women, both currently living in the Boston area, were recently separated from their children under President Donald Trump’s “zero-tolerance” policy. Both of the women are asylum seekers, and one has already been reunited with her daughter.

…“Both of the families we’re working with are Christians,” Clark said. “But what if they weren’t? Are we saying now you can’t be reunified with your own child if you don’t share the religious preference of this particular vendor who runs these detainment centers for children?”

…According to Clark, court documents filed on behalf of one of the women and an attorney for the other, the questions about religion came up during phone interviews with caseworkers responsible for determining whether the two mothers were suitable sponsors for their own kids.

…The woman, identified only as W.R. in her complaint, alleges in the case that in June she was instructed to fill out a “Family Reunification Packet” and was asked by a caseworker from BCFS, a Christian non-profit that serves as another government contractor, about her religious affiliation.

“The case worker’s very first question to W.R. was whether she is religious, and if so, what religion she practices,” according to the complaint. “The case worker then asked W.R. whether she was Christian and attended church and how often. W.R. replied that she is religious and attends church regularly, the case worker responded, ‘Great!.’”

The complaint says W.R. was then asked a range of questions by the caseworker, from her marital status to how she would “discipline” her son.

“W.R. answered all questions without objection, because she feared that any objection would jeopardize or further delay A.R.’s release,” the complaint states.

…Throughout the process of applying to be reunited with her child, W.R. was identified as the “sponsor” for her son, according to her lawsuit. The BCFS caseworker also referred to her as a “sponsor” during a phone interview, according to the court filing.

“We have to start treating these parents as parents,” Clark said. “We separated them from their children, and we have to do everything we can to bring them back together as quickly as possible. And asking a religious test to receive your own child back, are we saying that if you are not Christian you may not have your child returned to you? I find that shockingly — ‘inappropriate’ wouldn’t even begin to cover it — it’s just shocking that we would ask that question of parents.”

…W.R. was told that in order to complete her reunification paperwork she would need to be fingerprinted at a specific location in Massachusetts, more than 50 miles away, before her reunification case could be evaluated. The lawsuit states W.R. offered to have fingerprints taken at a US Citizens and Immigration Services site in Boston, but was told that she could not go there.

Clark said Gonzalez-Garcia was also initially told to travel from where she now lives in the Boston area to a specific site in New Jersey for fingerprints and would have to bear the cost of the travel. Both women, the lawmaker added, had already had fingerprints taken at the border. Asked what the justification was for traveling to a specific site for the fingerprints, Clark said, “We could never get a clear answer on that.”

“Nobody can tell me where the policy is from. I’ve asked everyone,” Clark said. “Can you send me the policy that says these moms need to be re-fingerprinted even though … Border Patrol has them, and why we can’t be sharing that information to get this process moving? And nobody can point me to a policy, an email, a meeting, a phone conversation.”

Government Contractors Asked About The Religion Of Immigrant Women Trying To Reunite With Their Kids, Lawyers Say

Grrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrr

Family separation lawsuit offers chilling details as Trump administration says it will fulfill federal court order | PBS NewsHour

Good lawd… The (in)humanity.

Judge orders Trump administration to share list of separated children – CBS News

hmmmm

Law students in the International Human Rights Clinic examined a subset of the records obtained. The documents show numerous cases involving federal officials’ verbal, physical and sexual abuse of migrant children; the denial of clean drinking water and adequate food; failure to provide necessary medical care; detention in freezing, unsanitary facilities; and other violations of federal law and policy and international law. The documents provide evidence that U.S. officials were aware of these abuses as they occurred, but failed to properly investigate, much less to remedy, these abuses.

Examples of the documented abuses include allegations that CBP officials:

• Punched a child’s head three times
• Kicked a child in the ribs
• Used a stun gun on a boy, causing him to fall to the ground, shaking, with his eyes rolling back in his head
• Ran over a 17-year-old with a patrol vehicle and then punched him several times
• Verbally abused detained children, calling them dogs and “other ugly things”
• Denied detained children permission to stand or move freely for days and threatened children who stood up with transfer to solitary confinement in a small, freezing room
• Denied a pregnant minor medical attention when she reported pain, which preceded a stillbirth
• Subjected a 16-year-old girl to a search in which they “forcefully spread her legs and touched her private parts so hard that she screamed”
• Left a 4-pound premature baby and her minor mother in an overcrowded and dirty cell full of sick people, against medical advice
• Threw out a child’s birth certificate and threatened him with sexual abuse by an adult male detainee.

The report also shows evidence of CBP holding migrant children in excess of the 72-hour maximum period permitted by law, as well as officials’ efforts to deport children without due process and via coercion.

ACLU Obtains Documents Showing Widespread Abuse of Child Immigrants in U.S. Custody | American Civil Liberties Union

Aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaagh. Monsterous.

On Friday, in the latest sign of disarray in the administration, officials admitted in court that they may miss a judge’s Tuesday deadline to reunite children under 5 with their parents.

…But hopes that the reunions would be swift were dashed in court on Friday and by other reports of a badly malfunctioning system that was overwhelmed when the President ordered a so-called zero tolerance policy that led to separations with no plan for dealing with the kids.

Some parents who have gone through immigration procedures have told CNN they don’t know how to get in touch with their kids — despite a court deadline that expired Friday for the administration to at least put parents in telephone touch with their offspring.

One Guatemalan woman called Lesvia, who got out of a detention center in Texas on Thursday, told CNN’s Miguel Marquez on Friday that she received no answers about the whereabouts of her 10-year-old son, who she last saw on May 19.

…The administration has yet to tell Americans exactly how many kids are still in custody, how long they will remain split from their parents and when this grim chapter of modern political history will end.

…Trump is also a master of distraction, and he has a polished record of creating new political storms to disguise scandals and dramas that could damage him politically.

He also got lucky. The retirement of Supreme Court Justice Anthony Kennedy and a vacancy that could cement the court’s ideological balance for a generation have captured the political imagination of Washington for over a week.

Next week, Trump will leave for a foreign trip packed with high-profile photo-ops, which includes a meeting with Russian President Vladimir Putin that is likely to further shove the separations issue into the background.

Yet all this time, several thousand kids are wondering when they will see their parents again.

…Doubts about the Trump administration’s capacity to reunite children and their parents are being exacerbated by its unwillingness or inability to publicly describe the scale of the problem or to explain how much progress it is making toward ending it.

On Thursday, Azar said that “under 3,000” children from separated families were in custody.

On Friday in a court filing, HHS said that number included “approximately” 101 kids under 5.

But there is no certainty over how many kids are still separated from their parents and how many families have been reunited — let alone the issue of how the government will deal with new families who cross the border and who won’t be separated but will still presumably be treated as criminals under the zero tolerance policy.

Trump administration separated families. Reuniting them is a mess. – CNNPolitics

hmmmm

US District Judge Dana Sabraw laid out a series of deadlines in a ruling last week. By Friday, officials must make sure every separated parent has a way to contact their child. By July 10, children younger than 5 must be reunited with their parents. And by July 26, all children should be reunited with their parents.

…Exactly how many kids from separated families are in custody? The last time officials released an official tally on this was June 26. Thursday, Azar said the number was “under 3,000” but added that reviews were ongoing and he could not provide more precise figure. This is an important number because — since officials have declined to specify the total number of families that have been reunited — looking at the number of children in custody is one of the few ways for the public to have any sense of whether reunions are happening, and how quickly.

…Officials haven’t disclosed how many parents from separated families were deported. But in court on Friday, Fabian revealed details about one subset: 19 parents of children younger than 5 were deported, she said.

…Parents have also been offered the option to sign voluntary departure orders to speed up their cases even if they still have other legal options — and told they’ll be reunited with their children before they are deported if they do.

Immigrant advocacy groups say they’re concerned that some parents may have been coerced or may have signed documents they didn’t understand.

The government hasn’t answered key questions on family separations – CNNPolitics

Agggggggggggggggggh