Lawyers are still searching for 506 parents, 322 of which are believed to have been deported.
A group of pro-bono lawyers working to reunite immigrant parents who were separated from their parents during the Trump administration has reported that they've found the parents of 105 children in the past month, NBC News reported.
The search for the parents of 506 children is still on, though, and at least 322 parents are believed to have been deported. In 2018, the Trump administration enacted a “zero tolerance” policy that separated children from their parents at the U.S. border.
The lawyers, who were appointed by a federal judge, have not disclosed how many parents and children have been reunited yet. The Biden administration has formed a task force to continue the effort and the attorney, in a court filing Wednesday, said they will be working with the task force to help the reunification process.
Lawyers noted that one reason it has been tough to locate many parents is because they agreed to deportation in order for their kids to be able to seek asylum in the U.S., NBC News reported.
Lee Gelernt, the deputy director of the American Civil Liberties Union's Immigrants' Rights Project, said Biden’s task force should bring the deported parents back to the U.S. under special protections to reunite with their children, the news station reported.
"People ask when we will find all of these families, and sadly, I can't give an answer. I just don't know," Gelernt previously told NBC News. ”But we will not stop looking until we have found every one of the families, no matter how long it takes. The tragic reality is that hundreds of parents were deported to Central America without their children, who remain here with foster families or distant relatives."
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