Why in news?
Trump has signed an executive order to end separation of immigrant families on the US-Mexico border.
What was the separation policy?
- This was part of Trump administration's “zero-tolerance” approach to dealing with undocumented migrants.
- It involves separating children from undocumented migrant parents.
What is the legal backing for this?
- There is no single U.S. law requiring families to be separated.
- But there are loopholes in legislations leaving way for two legal provisions:
- a law against “improper entry by aliens” at the border
- a decree known as the Flores settlement
- The first law makes it impossible to suddenly deport certain vulnerable categories of migrants.
- These include families, asylum-seekers and unaccompanied minors.
- To overcome this, Bush and Obama administrations adopted the policy of “catch and release”.
- Under this, migrants would be released from custody pending their deportation case adjudication.
- Family separation was unnecessary at that time.
- But under the zero-tolerance approach, all undocumented migrants are charged in criminal courts.
- Here, the Flores settlement applies.
- This is because it limits to 20 days the length of time migrant children may be held in immigration detention.
Why is the policy reversed now?
- While their parents face charges, the children are transferred to a different location.
- Separation leads to devastating consequences for the families.
- They remain in the custody of Customs and Border Protection personnel.
- Recently, disturbing images and videos of struggling children have emerged.
- In particular, there was a disturbing audio allegedly of crying children at one such unit.
- There was widespread protest about the ethics of using children to discourage further undocumented border crossings.
What is the present order?
- The order does not end the “zero tolerance” policy.
- It still calls for criminal prosecution of immigrants crossing the border illegally.
- However, now the illegal immigrant families would be detained together.
- It also moves parents with children to the front of the line for immigration proceedings.
What are the concerns?
- There are mixed reactions to the executive order, with significant concerns being highlighted.
- The President’s Executive Order seeks to replace one form of child abuse with another.
- It may pave the way for the long-term incarceration of families in prison-like conditions.
- Instead of protecting traumatised children, it may place them in more disturbing conditions.
- It may indeed be a continuation of violation of children’s human rights.
Source: The Hindu
