Report: Confusion, Lack of Guidance Slow Migrant Reunification Process

Immigration officials scrambling to reunite migrant children with their families after being separated at the border ahead of a July 10 deadline say the government has provided no guidance on how to proceed, Politico reports. Despite a federal judge ordering the Trump administration to bring families back together last week, staffers at the Office of Refugee Resettlement, the agency in charge of taking care of unaccompanied children, have complained of delays caused by a lack of resources or special procedures. “It’s been really difficult to start the reunification process because we just don’t have a lot of direction from leadership,” one official told Politico. Two other officials quoted in the report cast doubt on HHS Secretary Alex Azar’s assertion last week that all separated children could be located “in seconds.” They said Azar made that claim only to later call for volunteers to scour the files on 11,900 children in HHS custody to determine whether the agency had missed any who’d been separated from their parents.