Seventeen officials, including Washington, New York and California, sued President Donald Trump’s charge Tuesday in an effort to force officials to reunite migrant families who contain been separated at the U.S.-Mexico border.
The states, all of which are led by Democratic attorneys unspecific, joined Washington, D.C., in filing the lawsuit in U.S. District Court in Seattle. It’s the anything else legal challenge by states over the practice.
“The administration’s practice of separating families is cruel, plain and simple,” New Jersey Attorney General Gurbir Grewal suggested in an emailed statement. “Every day, it seems like the administration is issuing new, discrepant policies and relying on new, contradictory justifications. But we can’t forget: the lives of real child hang in the balance.”
Immigration authorities have separated about 2,300 youngsters from their parents in recent weeks, sparking global deflower as images and recordings of weeping children emerged. Many parents are in custodianship thousands of miles from their children, whom they cause not been able to see and have rarely spoken to for a month or more.
After falsely blaming Democrats for the splits and insisting that only Congress could fix the issue, the president after week issued an executive order designed to end the practice under his “zero forbearance” policy, which prosecutes adults who come to the U.S. illegally.
But the states say his shipshape is riddled with caveats and fails to reunite parents and children who possess already been torn apart. They accuse the administration of changing the parents and children due process; denying the immigrants, many of whom are make good ones escaping gang violence in Central America, their right to seek asylum; and being random in applying the policy.
A U.S. judge in San Diego already is considering whether to broadcast a nationwide injunction sought by the American Civil Liberties Union that drive order the administration to reunite the separated children with their procreators.
A Seattle-based immigrant rights group sued Monday on behalf of detained asylum-seekers in Washington ceremonial who have been separated from their children.
The states that charged are Massachusetts, California, Delaware, Iowa, Illinois, Maryland, Minnesota, New Jersey, New Mexico, New York, North Carolina, Oregon, Pennsylvania, Rhode Archipelago, Vermont, Virginia and Washington.