Politics- Lawyers who are working to reunite migrant families separated by the Trump administration's "zero tolerance" immigration policy said they couldn't find the parents of at least 666 children, NBC
News reported Monday. - An email obtained by NBC News revealed the latest count, which previously stood at 545 children for whom they could not contact their parents after they were separated at the border.
- President Donald Trump enacted the controversial "
zero tolerance " policy in 2018 in a crackdown on migrants illegally crossing the border, which resulted in hundreds of families getting separated. - Steven Herzog, the attorney spearheading the efforts to reunite the children with their parents, wrote in the email that the number of children is higher than previously thought because "the government did not provide any phone number" for the new group of children joining the reuniting effort.
- "We would appreciate the government providing any available updated contact information, or other information that may be helpful in establishing contact for all 666 of these parents," Herzog wrote in the email, according to the NBC News report.
- A source familiar with the demographic data of the group of migrant children told NBC News that nearly 20% of them were under 5 at the time of separation.
- Lee Gelernt, deputy director of the ACLU Immigrants' Rights Project, told NBC News that the higher total of separated children "includes individuals in addition to 545 for whom we got no information from government that would allow meaningful searches but are hopeful the government will now provide with that information."
- Read the full story at NBC News »
Lawyers trying to reunite migrant kids separated from their parents at border said they can't find parents for more than 650 children
Lauren Frias
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