The Trump administration found 1,700 unrecorded migrant children who may have been separated from their families at the border

Ellen Cranley

May 19, 2019 5:45 PM

President Donald Trump's administration has reportedly identified at least 1,712 previously unrecorded migrant children that may have been separated from their families at the border.

migrant children

A District Court judge ordered the administration to identify children who were separated before the "zero-tolerance" policy went into effect in June 2018.
The government was previously charged with reuniting families affected by the policy, but a new report that said "thousands more" were separated before the policy.
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Under a court order, President Donald Trump's administration reportedly identified at least 1,712 migrant children that US officials may have separated from their parents at the border.

These are in addition to the more than 2,800 who were separated after the infamous " zero-tolerance " policy took hold.

US District Court Judge Dana Sabraw ordered the administration toidentify children who were separated before the policy went into effect in May 2018, according to court transcripts reported by multiple outlets .

Not all of the cases have been concluded to be separations, but they were identified because they showed " some preliminary indication of separation," Commander Jonathan White said in court Friday, according to CNN .

The list of children was sent to Customs and Border Protection for the "next phase of review," Cmdr. White told NBC News, possibly signaling an effort similar to the government's previous reunification of children with their families who were separated during zero tolerance.

This is the latest development in the legal battle over the consequences of the separation policy.

Sabraw previously ordered the government to reunite 2,654 children it separated , some of whom have parents who were deported back to their home countries and in some cases were not immediately found.

In a March ruling, Sabraw said these children should be included in the ACLU's class action lawsuit over family separations.

Last month, Sabraw gave the administration until October 25 to identify the rest of children that had been separated but not accounted for. The renewed review comes after the Inspector General for Health and Human Services estimated "thousands more" may have been separated before the policy was officially underway.

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