US Senate Grills Officials over Immigrant Family Separations

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Trump administration officials on Tuesday withstood blistering criticism from Senate Democrats over continued immigrant family separations at the U.S.-Mexico border, with officials likening detention facilities to summer camps and insisting federal agencies are working valiantly to comply with U.S. law as well as court orders.

"Nearly 2,700 children were separated from their parents and more than 700 children still have not been reunited with their families, including more than 400 whose parents were apparently deported and more than 90 whose parents can't be located at all," said the Senate's No. 2 Democrat, Dick Durbin of Illinois.

"The policies of President Trump and Attorney General Jeff Sessions may essentially orphan hundreds of immigrant children," said the ranking Democrat on the Senate Judiciary Committee, Dianne Feinstein of California.

Testifying before the committee, top immigration and border protection officials admitted they missed a court-ordered deadline earlier this month for completing the reunification of families separated under the Trump administration's "zero tolerance" policy for illegal border crossings. But, they said, nearly all remaining minors fall into two categories: those whose parents have been deported and those who could be in some form of danger if released from federal custody.

Matthew Albence, who oversees U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement's removal of undocumented immigrants, said that when facing deportation, many parents of separated children "do not wish to have their child return home with them — the reason most of these individuals have come here in the first place is to get their children to the United States. … They've succeeded by getting their child here."

Albence added that ICE field offices have been working "24/7" to reunify families as quickly as possible.