Dozens of young children were reunited with their parents yesterday after being separated at the border under the Trump administration鈥檚 鈥渮ero-tolerance鈥� immigration . The government is still working to reunite many more children with their parents, some of whom are being held at a detention center in Aurora, Colorado.
Laura Lunn, a at the Rocky Mountain Immigrant Advocacy Network, is working with three mothers at the Immigration and Customs Enforcement, or ICE, detention in Aurora.
鈥淭hey certainly never anticipated this type of cruel punishment,鈥� says Lunn, who estimates that roughly 50 parents are still detained there.
Her clients have several things in common: They fled Guatemala, each with a six-year-old son, entered the U.S. in mid-May and were subsequently arrested and separated from their children, who are now in Arizona, Texas and New York.
Lunn can鈥檛 speak to specifics of her clients鈥� cases, but she says that 鈥渢hey all fled due to extreme danger.鈥�
鈥淭he purpose of them coming to the United States was to protect their kids, and they are facing a huge amount of guilt because the people that they were trying to protect were then taken from them and put in precarious situations,鈥� says Lunn.
Lunn鈥檚 clients have told her that their children ask on the phone if they鈥檙e being punished for something.
鈥淓ach one of them talks to me about how it feels like torture,鈥� she says. 鈥淓ach one of the mothers I鈥檓 working with has complained about not being able to eat, not being able to sleep, feeling incredibly anxious and depressed and worried about the wellbeing of their children.鈥�
In a statement about reunification, the Department of Homeland Security claimed on its in June that 鈥淭his process is well coordinated.鈥� But according to NPR, the Trump administration had only managed to reunite of the 102 children under 5 years old that a federal judge required it to reunite with parents by July 10.
The Rocky Mountain Immigrant Advocacy Network estimates that roughly 20 of the parents the group has worked with were released from Aurora, and only two of them are with their children again.
鈥淭he reunification process is completely up in the air,鈥� says Lunn. 鈥淔rom the information that I鈥檝e been receiving from my clients, it sounds as though Immigration and Customs Enforcement very recently started doing DNA tests to ensure that they鈥檙e matching parents up with their children. However, I just talked to someone from Immigration and Customs Enforcement and it sounds like the onus is very much on the parents to try and reunite with their children.鈥�
Additionally, should her clients be released, she says, it鈥檚 unclear whether they will have access to their own DNA tests to use as proof that the kids are theirs. One of the women is expected to be released any day. When she is, Lunn says, she鈥檚 planning to head straight to Texas to try and find her son.
As Fox 暗黑爆料 has , a federal judge ruled Tuesday that 鈥淒NA testing needed to be done only when parentage couldn't be proven through birth certificates or other ways, or when the lack of a DNA test would prolong family separation. The samples should be destroyed in 7 days and not used for any other purposes.鈥� TIME has that such DNA testing practices come with a host of ethical problems.
The government has until July 26 to reunify children of all ages with their parents.
This story was produced by the Mountain West 暗黑爆料 Bureau, a collaboration between Wyoming Public Media, Boise State Public Radio in Idaho, Yellowstone Public Radio in Montana, KUER in Salt Lake City and KRCC and KUNC in Colorado.
