Officials in the Trump administration had flagged hundreds of cases of concern about how families were being separated at the southern border, including some before the “zero tolerance” policy was announced, CNN reported.
The news network attributed its information to documents it reviewed. Some of the papers included incidents of children allegedly blindsided when they were separated from their parents, according to CNN.
In one case, a 11-year-old boy said he “was called aside by an officer and then he did not see his father again.”
The Office of Refugee Resettlement had flagged cases of family separation to the Department of Homeland Security Office of Civil Rights and Civil Liberties in incident reports. The refugee agency was not aware of the “zero tolerance” separation policy prior to its announcement in April 2018. The procedure continued during the zero tolerance program, which ended in June 2018 after a public outcry, CNN said.
In all, there were 850 referrals to the civil rights office between January 2018 and June 2018. The overwhelming majority came from the Office of Refugee Resettlement.
The documents also show that 12 children who were 1-year-old or younger, were said to be separated from their parents between December 2017 and May 2018. More than 100 referrals were sent before the announcement of the “zero tolerance policy.”
House Judiciary Committee Chairman Jerry Nadler, D-N.Y., said the documents were obtained by the panel
“These documents are startling,” he said.
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