WASHINGTON (AP) — Sixteen-year-old Billy’s friends at his rural Southern high school are unaware that he was one of thousands of children separated from their parents at the U.S.-Mexico border under then-President Donald’s zero-tolerance immigration policy Trump policy.
At school, where he plays football, Billy doesn’t talk about what he went through: that his father was told that Billy was being put up for adoption six years ago and feared he would never see his son again.
With the United States on the brink of an election that could return Trump to power, Billy wants people to know that what happened to him and several thousand other children still reverberates. Some families have not yet been reunited, and many of those living together in the US are on temporary status and fear a victorious Trump will carry out the promised mass deportations.
“It was very painful what happened to us,” said Billy, who was 9 at the time. He did not want his full name or the state he lives in identified for fear of jeopardizing his family’s asylum claim.
Trump has made his immigration views central to his campaign, accusing the Biden administration and Vice President Kamala Harris, the Democratic nominee for president, of failing to secure the southern border. Harris has not made immigration a focus of his campaign but has brought up Trump’s zero-tolerance policy, one of his most controversial immigration actions as president.
The Trump administration wanted to criminally prosecute all adults who cross the border illegally. Parents were separated from their children, who were taken to shelters across the country.
Trump and his campaign have not said specifically whether he will revive the practice if he wins on November 5. He has defended it before, including claiming without evidence during a Univision interview last year that it “stopped people from coming by the hundreds of thousands.” .”
“President Trump will restore his effective immigration policies, implement brand new crackdowns that will send shockwaves through the world’s criminal smugglers, and marshal every federal and state force necessary to launch the largest deportation operation of illegal criminals, drug dealers, and human traffickers.” American history,” said Karoline Leavitt, Trump campaign press secretary.
The Harris campaign hosted an event this month with children separated from their families, aiming to draw attention to Trump’s policies.
Billy, who spoke at the event, is part of a group of children sharing their stories in short videos on social media to raise awareness of the zero-tolerance policy. Billy and his father also visited lawmakers in Washington.
Billy told The Associated Press that even though he doesn’t normally talk about his experiences, he and the others are “making sure that we raise our voices and that we share our stories” so that something like this never happens again.
Most families separated years ago find themselves in a legal no man’s land and their immigration status is questionable. Under a settlement announced last year between families and the Biden administration, the families have two years to apply for asylum under a more favorable process.
As the election approaches, advocates say families who were separated have expressed fear that Trump, if elected, will make good on promises to deport millions of people.
“The families we serve are scared and have many questions about what a new Trump administration would mean for them,” said Anilú Chadwick Soltes, pro bono director of Together & Free, an organization founded in 2018 in response to the zero-tolerance policy . . The group works to help separated families.
The 2023 settlement banned future governments from using family separation as a widespread policy until 2031. But advocates are concerned.
Christie Turner-Herbas, a senior adviser at Kids in Need of Defense, said she worries about exceptions to the policy being exploited and says there must be political will to enforce it.
The Trump administration’s policy deviated from the general practice of keeping families with children together as they come to the southern border.
The aim was to discourage people by criminally prosecuting anyone who crossed the border. For families, parents were prosecuted. Children who could not be kept in custody were treated as unaccompanied minors and transferred to shelters.
After an outcry, Trump said on June 20, 2018 that he was ending the policy. Six days later, a judge ordered the government to reunite the families, thousands of whom had been separated. Agencies had not properly connected their computer systems, making it difficult to reunite families. Many parents were deported, further complicating matters.
When Democrat Joe Biden became president, he created a task force to reunite families. Building on efforts by groups that had sued the Trump administration, the task force found that approximately 5,000 children had been separated, and approximately 1,400 have not been confirmed to have been reunited with their families.
Some are in the process. Others are believed to have reunited in the US but are not coming forward, possibly out of fear of interaction with the government. For others, no valid contact information exists, so the search continues.
The American Civil Liberties Union, which has filed a lawsuit against the Trump administration that helped end family separations, estimates the number of children separated is closer to 5,500.
Lee Gelernt, lead attorney in that lawsuit, said the ACLU estimates that as many as 1,000 families remain separated.
“Some little children have now spent almost their entire lives without their parents,” he said.
The task force runs a website where families can register to be reunited, and works with the International Organization for Migration to help these families with things like obtaining a passport to come to the US. The task force director has traveled to the families’ home countries to make radio announcements looking for parents.
Interest groups have also played an important role.
Justice in Motion, which works with lawyers in Mexico and Central America to track down parents, uses a last known address and talks to neighbors, local businesses, hospitals, schools – anyone who knows where that person is.
But they are stuck with poor administration that is now outdated, said Nan Schivone, the organization’s legal director.
Families and separated children have struggled with the consequences.
For 22-year-old Efrain, there was guilt. Efrain said his father didn’t want to bring him to the U.S. in 2018, but he insisted. When they finally separated, Efrain wondered if it would have been better if his father had been alone.
His father was sent back to Guatemala. Efrain, who did not want his full name used because he feared the consequences, was placed in a shelter for unaccompanied children for about five months.
His father has diabetes and Efrau was concerned about his health. When they were able to have a video call after Efrain left the shelter, he noticed how much thinner his father looked.
Three years later they reunited at the Atlanta airport. Since then, Efrain says he’s been trying to make up for lost time. He says he struggles with anxiety and loneliness, echoing the isolation he felt after being separated from his father.
“It’s like I’m alone in a locked room,” he said in Spanish.
Billy’s father, meanwhile, still cries when he talks about what he and his son experienced years later. He believes people have forgotten what happened and the trauma the families suffered.
Billy says he has found purpose in sharing what he has experienced: “I know my story has a lot of power.”
___
Associated Press reporter Valerie Gonzalez in McAllen, Texas, contributed to this report.
