A federal judge in San Diego Tuesday night ordered the federal government to reunite migrant parents with children taken from them under the Trump administration’s family separation policy.
U.S. District Court Judge Dana Sabraw, based in San Diego, issued a preliminary injunction on Tuesday night requiring that nearly all children younger than 5 be returned to their parents within 14 days and that older children be returned within 30 days.
POLITICO reports the judge blasted the Trump administration for what he called “a chaotic circumstance of the Government’s own making,” Sabraw said it was a “startling reality” that no adequate planning had been done before officials embarked on a policy to separate children from parents kept in immigration custody or referred for criminal prosecution.
The zero tolerance immigration policy by the Trump administration has led to more than 2,300 children being separated from their parents or other family members.