Parents of another 54 separated kids have been located as search for hundreds of others continues

This is the first court filing in ongoing litigation over the previous administration’s policy since the return of a number of parents to the United States through humanitarian parole earlier this month. Among the families put back together thanks to advocates like Al Otro Lado and returned to the U.S. with permission from the Biden administration were Sandra Ortíz and her son Bryan Chávez, reunited after more than three years apart.

“Ortíz, 48, from central Mexico, had packed her bag days earlier: three outfits, a pair of shoes and the birth certificate of her son, whom she hadn’t seen since they were separated at the border in 2017, when he was 15,” The Washington Post reported at the time. “He’s now almost 19.”

“Today, after over three excruciating years of separation, our client Sandra is holding her son Bryan in her arms again,” Al Otro Lado tweeted following the family’s reunification. “This moment was a testament to the resilience strength, + determination of a parent who asked for nothing more than safety for themselves + their children.” In another hopeful sign for separated parents and their children, Department of Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas said that entire families, including the siblings of kids separated under the policy, could be eligible for reunification in the United States.

“Mayorkas said in an interview, ‘We are very much focused on providing stability to the reunited families, and not just for her but for the family as a unit,’ referring to a woman who had just been reunited with her son,” NBC News reported earlier this month.

Advocates are continuing the painstaking work of locating hundreds of other parents who were quickly deported by the previous administration but have yet to be found. They said in this latest court filing that the parents of 227 children have still not yet been found due to these cruel deportations. The parents of another “100 are somewhere in the U.S. and 14 have no contact information,” the NBC News report continued.

Democratic legislators have recently introduced legislation that would reunify separated families in the U.S. and put them on a path to citizenship, which has been supported by organizations like Kids in Need of Defense. The group tweeted that along with its partners Justice In Motion, Women’s Refugee Commission, and Paul Weiss LLP, they “continue to find the parents forcibly separated from their children. As we work to locate more parents, the admin must bring back the 227 parents deported. These children belong with their parents.”