Biden’s Plan to Reunite Immigrant Families is a Mystery for Now

In the closing days of the presidential campaign, Joe Biden pledged to make reuniting the hundreds of migrant children forcibly separated from their families under the Trump administration’s “zero tolerance” policy a top priority of his new administration.

But those who have dedicated much of the past two years to reuniting those children with their loved ones say that the continued challenges posed by President Donald Trump’s family separation policy are far more complicated than merely matching parents and children—and can only be truly addressed by the president-elect backing reforms that would allow parents who were deported without their kids to reunite on American soil.

“I can’t even imagine what that would be like to be separated from your family member, but the reunification in home-country, particularly when a lot of folks coming were seeking asylum… it really doesn’t make sense,” said Leah Chavla, senior policy adviser in the Migrant Rights and Justice program at the Women’s Refugee Commission.