The goal of the policy is to prosecute 100 percent of the people who cross the border illegally, Melissa Hastings, a policy advisor for the U.S. bishops' migration and refugee services, told CNA in June 2018.
The policy has no exceptions for families who turn themselves over to U.S. border authorities on the grounds that they are seeking legal asylum. In the majority of cases, border patrol never asks the parent or accompanying adult if they can verify their relationship, Hastings said.
Once a child is separated and their parent detained, communication between family members becomes very challenging. The shelters caring for the children have to identify where the separated parent has been detained and establish contact.
Since March of 2018 at least four federal lawsuits have been filed challenging the policy.
Migrants' advocates say there are family members who can take in minors as an alternative to detaining the minors for months. Most underage migrants traveled from Central America alone or without a parent or legal guardian. Most ask for asylum, citing the danger of violent street gangs in their home neighborhoods, National Public Radio reports.
The U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops, whose longtime criticism of U.S. migration policy has become more prominent under the Trump administration, also rejected the practice of separating children and parents.
"Children are not instruments of deterrence but a blessing from God," Bishop Joe S. Vásquez of Austin, chair of the bishops' migration committee, said in June 2018.
Separating families at the U.S. border "does not allay security concerns," he said, adding, "Rupturing the bond between parent and child causes scientifically-proven trauma that often leads to irreparable emotional scarring."
In June 2018, the United Nations human rights office condemned the U.S. practice of separating migrant children from their parents at the border as "a serious violation of the rights of the child."
CLINIC's partners include faith-based institutions, farmworker programs, domestic violence shelters, ethnic community organizations, libraries and other entities that serve immigrants. It has about 2,300 accredited representatives and attorneys who serve hundreds of thousands of immigrants each year.
The organization has joined the class action lawsuit to an amended complaint on behalf of the approximately 10,000 detained children. The legal case is known as J.E.C.M. et al v. Lloyd et al.
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The latest lawsuit was filed by the Southern Poverty Law Center, the Legal Aid Justice Center and Sterne, Kessler, Goldstein & Fox PLLC.
The Southern Poverty Law Center is not without controversy. Founded in 1971, it originally monitored persons and groups fighting the civil rights movement. It then began tracking racist and white supremacist groups like neo-Nazis and affiliates of the Ku Klux Klan. It also claims to monitor other "extremist" groups it considers to be anti-immigrant and anti-Muslim.
More recently, the SPLC has listed as "hate groups" mainstream Christian groups like the Family Research Council and Alliance Defending Freedom, saying they take an "anti-LGBT" stance. The Ruth Institute has also been included in this list.
The designation has had financial consequences. The Amazon Smile donation program and payment processors have dropped several of the groups based on the listing.
In 2012, an armed shooter at the Family Research Council's D.C. headquarters wounded a security guard before he was detained. He told FBI agents he was motivated by "their stance against gay rights" and cited the SPLC's listing of the group as a "hate group."