The Trump administration is apparently considering a reboot of its least popular immigration policy: the widespread separation of families who cross the US-Mexico border.
According to the Washington Post, senior administration officials are discussing a policy that would keep families in detention for a few weeks, and then force them to make a choice: to stay in detention for the months or years it takes for their cases to be resolved (and waive their rights under the Flores court settlement, which prevents the administration from keeping children in immigration detention indefinitely), or agree to be separated so that the child can go to the less restrictive custody of Health and Human Services. (They would also have the implicit option to give up on their asylum cases and agree to imminent deportation.)
While the Trump administration's last effort at family separation was put on hold after massive political blowback, first by an executive order from Trump and then with a legal injunction from a federal judge, courts and the American Civil Liberties Union have agreed with the administration that it would be legal to force families to choose between detention and separation, as long as they had the choice.
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