Protecting Immigrants’ Rights – The Latest on Family Separation

In October, the ACLU announced a major settlement involving our years-long lawsuit on behalf of thousands of traumatized children and parents who were forcibly torn from each other under the Trump administration's illegal zero-tolerance practice of separating families at the border.

Family separation marked one of the most cruel and high-profile crises of the prior administration, and our litigation has since revealed that thousands of children, including babies and toddlers, were ripped from their parents' arms with little or no warning. The separated families were not told when – or even if – they would ever see each other again. Many children and parents did not see each other again for a year or more.

To finally reunify families and to get them the support they need, the ACLU filed with the court a proposed settlement agreement in Ms. L v. ICE, a case we initially filed in 2018, seeking to reunite an asylum-seeking mother and her 7-year-old daughter, who were detained separately 2,000 miles apart in the U.S. after fleeing violence in the Democratic Republic of Congo.

The ACLU won a nationwide injunction in 2018 that ended the family separation practice. The settlement announced just a few weeks ago, after literally years of negotiation, is a major step forward.

Under the settlement:

- An estimated 4,500-5,000 children and their parents will be covered under this settlement, which provides benefits to help separated families regain stability, including work authorization, housing and legal assistance, and medical services.

- The government will continue to identify families that were separated, fund their reunification in the U.S., and provide a pathway for them to seek asylum here.

- An essential component of the settlement is the government's agreement that it could not reenact the zero-tolerance policy moving forward.

The next step is for the court to consider and, hopefully, approve the settlement. Once that happens, we will enter a new phase of our family separation work: ensuring that families affected by the family separation policy receive the benefits promised to them, and that the government continues to identify and reunite families.

The ACLU will continue advocating for these families' rights and ensure that U.S. immigration enforcement is transparent and accountable to the American public.

We could not have achieved this important milestone without your support -- thank you for your continued support!