DOJ: Guatemalan asylum seeker who sued Trump administration will be reunited with son
Beata Mariana de Jesus Mejia-Mejia filed suit Tuesday, complaining that after she crossed the border with her son in Arizona last month and requested asylum, her child was “ripped” from her by immigration officials. | Alex Brandon/AP Photo
A Guatemalan woman who sued the Trump administration this week for separating her from her 7-year-old son at the Mexican border is likely to soon be reunited with her child, Justice Department lawyers said Thursday
The assurance that steps were underway to release the child to his mother came less than two hours before a scheduled hearing in federal court in Washington on the request by the woman’s attorneys for a restraining order requiring the child’s immediate release.
The fast-moving case seemed to typify the confusion over the Trump administration’s policy of separating children from family members detained after crossing the Mexican border. About 2,500 children appear to have been separated from their parents in recent weeks, with plans to reunite them uncertain, even after President Donald Trump signed an executive order Wednesday that he said would stop families from being split up.
Beata Mariana de Jesus Mejia-Mejia filed suit Tuesday, complaining that after she crossed the border with her son in Arizona last month and requested asylum, her child was “ripped” from her by immigration officials.
In a court filing just after noon Thursday, Justice Department lawyers told U.S. District Court Judge Paul Friedman that a restraining order is unnecessary. The attorneys said the boy is in the custody of the Department of Health and Human Services Office of Refugee Resettlement.
“ORR has already begun the process of conducting the necessary checks to fulfill its statutory mandate to assure itself that Plaintiff…is capable of providing for the child’s physical and mental well-being,” the government lawyers said. “ORR expects to be able to release [the boy] to Plaintiffs’ custody, once those checks can be completed.”
The Justice Department filing also made various technical arguments against the suit, arguing that it should have been filed in Arizona, not Washington, and that the child should have been named as a plaintiff since his release was being sought. The case also seeks damages for pain and suffering related to the separation of the mother and son.
The legal case is one of a relatively small number of court challenges to Trump’s family separations, which unleashed a political firestorm in recent days.
Trump signed the executive order Wednesday that he said would bring an end to the practice, chiefly by detaining children along with their family members. Such a change appears to require the approval of a federal judge.
While Mejia-Mejia’s suit is framed as a challenge to the Trump administration’s family separation policy and mentions Attorney General Jeff Sessions’ “zero tolerance” directive in April — which called for all illegal border-crossers to be prosecuted — it’s not clear that she was affected by that aspect of the policy.
The suit does not name the Justice Department as a defendant and gives no indication that the Guatemalan native was subject to criminal charges for coming into the U.S. “She was never indicted for illegal entry to the U.S.,” the complaint says.
Source:Politico.com