Report: US lacked technology to track separated families

In this Feb. 19, 2019, file photo, children line up to enter a tent at the Homestead Temporary Shelter for Unaccompanied Children in Homestead, Fla. The U.S. government didn't have the technology needed to properly document and track the thousands of immigrant families separated at the southern border in 2018. That's according to a new report by an internal government watchdog. (AP Photo/Wilfredo Lee, File) In this Feb. 19, 2019, file photo, children line up to enter a tent at the Homestead Temporary Shelter for Unaccompanied Children in Homestead, Fla. The U.S. government didn't have the technology needed to properly document and track the thousands of immigrant families separated at the southern border in 2018. That's according to a new report by an internal government watchdog. (AP Photo/Wilfredo Lee, File)

By ASTRID GALVAN Associated Press November 28, 2019 3 min read

PHOENIX (AP) – The U.S. government separated thousands of families despite knowing it lacked the technology to document and track their whereabouts, according to a report released Wednesday by an internal government watchdog.

The problem resulted in some parents languishing in custody for weeks without knowing the location of their children.

The report by the Department of Homeland Security’s Office of Inspector General found the agency lacked proper systems when Border Patrol agents took children from parents set to be criminally prosecuted for illegal entry.

Most of those separations took place in the spring of 2018, although the Border Patrol conducted a pilot program the previous summer.

The problem meant agents had to delete prior entries documenting families who arrived together and replace them with references to “single adults” and “unaccompanied children.”