Trump administration seeks to extend deadline to reunite some migrant families

WASHINGTON – The Trump administration will not fully meet a federal judge's deadline to reunite all migrant families separated at the U.S.-Mexico border, and instead is seeking more time in instances where officials are struggling to match children to parents, according to court records filed late Thursday.

The government's request, hours before a scheduled hearing on the issue Friday, marks an abrupt departure from comments made earlier Thursday from President Trump's secretary for Health and Human Services Secretary Alex Azar, whose agency cares for the children in shelters. He had said the Trump administration "will comply" with the deadlines, though he criticized the judge's timetable as "extreme."

Azar said Thursday morning that an army of government workers had been dispatched to review files and conduct DNA testing to match parents with their children. Another top official leading the effort said in the court filing that, although officials were working nights and over the weekend, they may be unable to quickly match some families because the tests were inconclusive, or the parents were released from custody and have not yet been found.

"HHS has worked diligently to expedite these processes to enable the Government to comply with the timelines in the Court's order," the Justice Department said in its filing. "HHS anticipates, however, in some instances it will not be able to complete the additional processes within the timelines the Court prescribed, particularly with regard to class members who are already not in Government custody, (e.g., because they have previously been paroled or released)."

A Justice Department spokesman did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

In a June 26 ruling, U.S. District Judge Dana M. Sabraw in San Diego ordered federal officials to bring the families back together within 30 days. He ordered them to reunite children under age 5 – there are 101, according to the most recent court records – with their parents by Tuesday.

The court records offer a glimpse of the government's progress so far.

Officials said about 40 parents of the 101 children under age 5 are in federal immigration custody, while another nine are in U.S. Marshal's custody, apparently for criminal proceedings.

Officials are attempting to match the remaining parents – they did not say how many – with their children, said Jonathan White, a top federal official working on the reunification effort with HHS and other agencies.

The government also does not know precisely how many minors age 5 through 18 have been separated from their parents, a process officials called "ongoing," according to the court documents. Azar had said Thursday that "under 3,000" children had been separated from their parents.

Another issue for the Trump administration is that Sabraw's ruling also applies to families split up before its "zero tolerance" policy was implemented in May. The policy, which vowed to bring criminal charges against all migrants crossing the border illegally, dramatically increased separations and the administration did not keep close track of the figures.

U.S. Border Patrol agents dispatched parents to criminal courts and then to federal immigration detention, while children were sent to HHS shelters.

In his ruling, Sabraw called the separations "chaotic." Advocates said the practice has traumatized families. A Honduran man killed himself while in U.S. custody after his son was taken away.

Sabraw's ruling emerged from a class-action lawsuit brought by the American Civil Liberties Union on behalf of parents separated from their children.

The president said he took the drastic measure to secure the border. Apprehensions slumped in June, as they typically do in the hot summer months, though at more than 42,000, the monthly tally is nearly double what it was in June 2017.