AUSTIN, Texas (AP) – The chief executive of the nation’s largest shelters for migrant children said Tuesday he fears a lack of urgency by the U.S. government could mean it will take months to reunite thousands of immigrant children with their parents.
Juan Sanchez of the nonprofit Southwest Key Programs said the government has no process in place to speed the return of more than 2,000 children separated from their parents as part of the Trump administration’s recent “zero-tolerance” crackdown on illegal immigration.
“It could take days,” Sanchez said Tuesday in an interview with The Associated Press. “Or it could take a month, two months, six or even nine. I just don’t know.”
The communications staff at the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services didn’t reply to a request for information about how long the process would take. During Congressional testimony on Tuesday, HHS Secretary Alex Azar declined to be pinned down on how long it would take to reunite separated families. “We have to expeditiously get children out of our care,” he said.
Sanchez said Southwest Key is “ready today” to do what it takes to reunite children with parents who have been arrested for trying to cross the U.S.-Mexico border. But he said his group is limited in what it can do because many parents’ cases will likely have to make their way through the legal system before the federal Office of Refugee Resettlement can give the go-ahead to put families back together.