Entrenched CBP practices and policies continue to separate families 

CONTACT

Hayley Burgess, UCLA Center for Immigration Law and Policy, burgess@law.ucla.edu

Los Angeles, CA – A new report released today by the Immigrants' Rights Policy Clinic, part of the Center for Immigration Law and Policy (CILP) at the UCLA School of Law, sheds light on how U.S. Customs and Border Protection (CBP) continues to separate families at the U.S.-Mexico border. Told through timelines, policies, and personal stories, the report, entitled Cruel Indifference: Family Separation at the U.S.-Mexico Border Before and After Zero Tolerance, addresses the common misconceptions that family separation started under the Trump administration and ended under President Biden. The report follows on the heels of Biden’s newly-announced executive actions that promise to keep some families already in the United States together, while doubling down on policies that tear families apart at the border.  

"Family separation persists at the U.S. border today, fueled by a lack of effective policies and Customs and Border Protection’s (CBP) culture of cruel indifference," said Monika Langarica, Senior Staff Attorney at the Center for Immigration Law and Policy (CILP) at the UCLA School of Law. "Family separation at the border will continue to undermine efforts to create a just immigration system until the federal government meaningfully implements effective policies to protect family unity in border processing, and holds CBP accountable for its abuses.”

The report includes the story of asylum seeker “Lucy,” who arrived in the U.S. from El Salvador and described her anguish upon being separated from her daughter and two sons in February 2022. "I didn’t know where any of my children were. It was a feeling of hopelessness I cannot describe … At that point, I considered taking my own life. My children are everything to me, and their safety is all I care about, just as any mother can understand.”

Although the Biden administration took important steps to reunite children separated from their parents as a result of Trump’s Zero Tolerance policy, CBP continues to separate families. Those most often subject to separations under current policies and practices include spouses, pregnant women separated from their partners, and young adult children separated from their parents. Between September and December 2023 alone, the immigrants’ rights organization Al Otro Lado documented more than 1,000 family separations in San Diego.

“While the Biden administration should be lauded for its efforts to protect the unity of some families and to address the harms inflicted by Trump’s cruel border policies, it has failed to grapple with the ways in which its own policies and practices continue to separate families at the U.S.-Mexico  border,” said Talia Inlender, Deputy Director of the Center for Immigration Law and Policy (CILP) at UCLA School of Law.

The report concludes with 12 concrete policy proposals to prevent family separation at the U.S.-Mexico border, facilitate reunification, and keep CBP transparent and accountable. 

Read the full report: Cruel Indifference: Family Separation at the U.S.-Mexico Border Before And After Zero Tolerance.