The ‘Permanently Orphaned’
On Friday, a federal judge in Southern California certified a settlement between the government and thousands of migrant children and parents who were rent from one another by the Trump administration as part of its immigration crackdown. Judge Dana Sabraw’s decision ended a years-long legal battle, ultimately giving the families almost everything they’d asked for: The settlement bars U.S. immigration authorities from taking children away from their parents under almost any circumstance for eight years and provides the families who were separated the right to return and seek asylum in the U.S., as well as government-funded legal representation, and temporary housing and health care. The ACLU, in the organization’s 103-year history. But Sabraw underscored in his decision that family separations never should have happened, and that no number of resources can undo the harm they caused.
