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ICE updates policies to prioritize keeping migrant families together

Asylum seekers wait in line for food near El Chaparral plaza in Tijuana, Mexico, on March 21, 2021. On Thursday, the Biden administration issued a memo instructing border agents to keep migrant families together. File Photo by Ariana Drehsler/UPI
1 of 5 | Asylum seekers wait in line for food near El Chaparral plaza in Tijuana, Mexico, on March 21, 2021. On Thursday, the Biden administration issued a memo instructing border agents to keep migrant families together. File Photo by Ariana Drehsler/UPI | License Photo

July 14 (UPI) -- The Biden administration issued a memo Thursday ordering border agents to prioritize keeping migrant families who cross the border into the United States together.

Immigration and Customs Enforcement Director Tae Johnson said agents should ensure that adult migrants who are arrested are able to maintain contact with their children and participate in any related court proceeding. The directive applies to any incapacitated adult for which the migrant adult serves as guardian or caregiver.

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"In the course of their duties, our officers and special agents will preserve family unity and the parental rights of non-citizen parents and legal guardians to the greatest extent possible," Johnson said.

"ICE will ensure that our civil immigration enforcement activities do not unnecessarily disrupt or infringe upon the parental or guardianship rights of non-citizen parents or legal guardians of minor children or incapacitated adults."

The ICE directive comes in the wake of a Trump-era policy that separated arrested parents from their children at the U.S-Mexico border. The policy saw thousands of children placed in facilities, sometimes in different states from their parents.

The memo says ICE agents must identify parents or legal guardians and their children by "affirmatively inquiring" about their status. The agency will also establish new procedures for the placement of parents and children to ensure access for visitation.

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ICE said the new policy goes into effect immediately, with full implementation in the coming months.

In December, the Biden administration abandoned negotiations to provide cash payments to the thousands of migrant families who were separated under former President Donald Trump's so-called "zero-tolerance" policy.

Upon taking office in 2021, President Joe Biden tasked Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas with reuniting families still separated under the policy. Biden called the separations "criminal" in a debate with Trump.

Human rights groups condemned the separation policy, which pulled apart thousands of migrant families. The American Academy of Pediatrics called the policy "government-sanctioned child abuse," and a study in 2021 found that some of the separated children continued to suffer from psychological trauma, even though they have been reunited with family.

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