Background

In the spring of 2018, Attorney General Jeff Sessions announced that the United States would adopt a “zero tolerance” policy toward people attempting to enter the country illegally, which included the separation of children from parents.

In April, Homeland Security Secretary Kirstjen Nielsen testified to the House Appropriations Committee that the department’s policy was to keep families “together as long as operationally possible” and that “when we separate, we separate because the law tells us to.” Speaking to a group of law enforcement officials the next month, Sessions said, “If you are smuggling a child, then we will prosecute you and that child will be separated from you as required by law.”

As of mid-June 2018, the federal government had separated and detained more than 2,000 children, housing many of them in chain-link cages in temporary facilities set up along the border.

DHS detained children who arrived at the border, sometimes for far longer than the 72 hours allowed by law, then transferred the children to the custody of the Department of Health and Human Services, which kept the children in “tent cities,” at least one of which remains operational.

Public outcry led to a June 2018 executive order in which President Trump officially ended the family-separation policy and instructed DHS to house children with their parents in existing facilities. But news reports indicate that children are still being separated from their parents, and the indefinite detention of minors would violate the 1997 Flores Settlement Agreement, which limits how long immigrant children can be detained. In January 2019, the inspector general of the Department of Health and Human Services found that a steep increase in the number of separated children referred to the department’s Office of Refugee Resettlement had increased significantly as early as the summer of 2017 — well before the announcement of the zero-tolerance policy.

American Oversight is seeking a broad range of records from the key agencies involved in the Trump administration’s policy of separating and detaining children of immigrants arrested at the border, from information about detention facility conditions to communications with Congress and information about the costs of implementing the policy.

What We’re Seeking

• Records from nine agencies, including DOJ, HHS, and the Office of Management and Budget, about the full costs of the family-separation policy and where the funds came from, and communications between agencies and Congress about such funding
• HHS records related to DNA testing to reunite parents and children
• HHS Administration for Children and Families records regarding detention facility conditions and complaints of abuse
• Records from multiple agencies to determine if Nielsen deliberately misled Congress in her April 2018 testimony about the family separation policy
• Records from DHS, Customs and Border Protection (CBP), Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE), and Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS) regarding the implementation of the “zero tolerance” policy, including memos sent to local field offices, as well as any communications with anti-immigrant groups or activists
• Records from CBP regarding family separations at the San Ysidro and Hidalgo ports of entry
• Records of multiple agencies’ communications with private prison companies and contractors that have been involved in detaining separated children