(EL PASO, TEXAS) In the El Paso Border Patrol Sector, where a little-noticed pilot program began splitting parents from children in 2017, the legacy of the Trump administration’s zero tolerance push still shows up in court files and reunification lists years later. Federal records and rights groups say at least 5,569 migrant children were separated from a parent or legal guardian at the United States 🇺🇸-Mexico border between 2017 and 2021, after adults who crossed without authorization were referred for criminal prosecution for “improper entry,” a misdemeanor.
With parents sent to jail or detention to face charges, children were reclassified as “unaccompanied” and moved into the custody of the Office of Refugee Resettlement (ORR) inside the Department of Health and Human Services.
Origins and how the policy operated
The separations were not a single weekend of chaos but a policy choice that grew out of internal talks beginning in February 2017 and then took shape on the ground in West Texas.
- A pilot in El Paso ran from May to October 2017, according to the source material.
- The administration expanded the approach border-wide in May 2018.
- The stated rationale: prosecuting every adult who crossed between ports of entry would deter future arrivals.
- The criticism: the plan turned children into tools of enforcement and the government did not build a tracking system capable of keeping families connected once split across different agencies.
Scale, complaints, and documentation problems
The scale of separations became clearer as lawsuits and audits forced numbers into the public record.
- Source material reports more than 4,600 children separated from 2017 to 2021.
- Nearly 2,000 children were separated during a six-week peak in 2018 when the policy was most aggressive.
- From January to June 2018, the Department of Homeland Security’s civil rights office received 850 complaints about separations, many forwarded by ORR.
Parents often did not know where their children were taken, and children frequently could not reach parents who were in criminal custody. The government’s failure to maintain accurate tracking—matching parent and child case information across agencies—became a defining feature of the crisis.
Policy changes, court intervention, and legal timeline
President Trump moved to blunt political fallout after images and audio of crying children generated worldwide outrage.
- On June 20, 2018, he signed Executive Order 13841, which:
- Ended systematic separations.
- Directed the government to keep families together by expanding family detention, unless a child’s welfare was at risk.
- Despite the executive order, the source material says separations continued on other grounds through 2019.
A related legal fight over the Flores Settlement Agreement—which limits how long the government can hold children in immigration custody, generally to 20 days—began around the same time.
Six days after the executive order, the courts acted:
- On June 26, 2018, U.S. District Judge Dana Sabraw (Southern District of California) issued a nationwide preliminary injunction ordering the government to reunify separated children with their parents within 30 days.
- The injunction forced cross‑agency efforts—Border Patrol, Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE), the Department of Justice (DOJ), and ORR—to try to match children back to adults they had lost track of.
Despite the order, the source material notes agencies failed to track parent-child matches adequately, leaving significant paperwork gaps that hampered reunification.
Keep copies of every case number, sponsor details, and custody status. When reunification is slow, proactively request updates from ORR and document all communications to prevent gaps in the trail.
Investigations, findings of intent, and international response
A 2021 report by the Office of the Inspector General intensified the debate over intent.
- The report found DOJ leaders, including President Trump and then-Attorney General Jeff Sessions, knew the policy would cause separations.
- Sessions had championed the approach as a way to increase prosecutions and deterrence.
- DHS Secretary Kirstjen Nielsen faced congressional questions about reports of separations even at ports of entry.
- Republican Senator Susan Collins criticized the practice as children were taken despite Nielsen’s testimony.
- The UN High Commissioner for Human Rights also condemned the policy, citing violations of the Refugee Convention.
Human impact and long-term consequences
For families, the consequences have been measured less in memos than in lasting trauma.
- The source material documents reports of PTSD, anxiety, and long-term psychological harm among separated parents and children.
- Some children were too young to give accurate names or phone numbers, complicating later reunification efforts.
- Those information gaps mattered when the government attempted to unwind the policy under the Biden administration.
Reunification efforts under the Biden administration
The Biden administration created a Family Reunification Task Force in 2021 to locate parents and reunite families. Its stated actions include:
- Locating parents;
- Allowing certain parents to enter the United States 🇺🇸;
- Reopening some asylum cases;
- Providing court-ordered mental health services.
However, the source material says the task has been haunted by missing records and parents deported without reliable contact information.
Key numbers highlighting incomplete reunification:
- As of November 30, 2023, the source material reports over 1,000 children remained separated, with the government unable to contact 68 parents.
- Human Rights Watch reported as many as 1,360 children still unreunited as of late 2024.
- As of December 2024, reunification remained incomplete for about 30% of cases from Trump’s first term.
Human Rights Watch described the practice as “enforced disappearance,” while other critics argued it could amount to “potential torture” because of the fear and uncertainty imposed on children and parents.
The damage did not end when the policy ended—the paperwork to reverse it was missing or wrong, and the trauma persisted.
2025 developments and the shifting enforcement debate
The source material does not show evidence of a systematic return to family separation under the second Trump administration beginning 2025, but enforcement debates have shifted.
- The administration expanded family detention at facilities such as the Karnes County Residential Center and the South Texas Family Residential Center.
- A July 4, 2025 legislative package provided $45 billion over four years to support enforcement efforts.
- On April 12, 2025, the Department of Justice filed a motion to terminate the Flores agreement.
- Immigration lawyers responded with a lawsuit filed June 20, 2025, citing poor detention conditions—moving the fight from prosecutions and separations to the length and quality of family detention.
Operational strain on ORR and on-the-ground realities
ORR, which normally places children with vetted relatives or other sponsors, was suddenly tasked with absorbing large numbers of newly classified unaccompanied minors.
ORR case managers had to:
- Find beds;
- Arrange medical checks;
- Locate and vet sponsors;
…while parents sat in federal custody facing misdemeanor charges.
Advocates said that accelerated processing increased the risk of mistakes and that some parents signed removal papers just to see their kids again. The DHS complaint tally illustrated how quickly the system was breaking in practice.
Why details still matter, especially in El Paso
In El Paso—the site of the initial experiment—lawyers tracking cases say specific details remain crucial for reunification:
- Which agency had custody on which day;
- Whether a parent signed a deportation order while panicked;
- Whether a child was ever given a case number that matched the parent’s.
The source material does not provide names of individual families, but it makes clear that thousands of migrant children were drawn into a system that treated parents’ criminal cases and children’s welfare cases as separate, despite their real-life interconnection.
According to analysis by VisaVerge.com, reunification efforts now depend as much on rebuilding lost paper trails as on policy promises.
Where families can find official information
Families seeking ORR contact details or updates on custody procedures can find official information at the Department of Health and Human Services’ ORR site:
Regularly check the ORR and DHS updates for changes to custody rules, timelines, and sponsor screening. Mark deadlines and set reminders to follow up on unresolved cases and new documentation needs.
- Office of Refugee Resettlement (ORR) — explains how children are placed and how sponsors are screened.
From a 2017 El Paso pilot through a national expansion in 2018, U.S. enforcement policies led to at least 5,569 migrant children being separated from parents prosecuted for improper entry. A mid-2018 surge saw nearly 2,000 separations. Court orders required reunification, but cross-agency tracking failures, missing records, and deportations obstructed efforts. The Biden administration’s 2021 task force made progress, yet hundreds remained unreunited by late 2023–2024, leaving long-term trauma and unanswered accountability questions.
