By Alexandra Hutzler
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Some migrant children who were separated from their families as part of the Trump administration's "zero tolerance" policy say they were abused during their time in federally-funded foster care. Now the families are gearing up to sue the government, and it could cost taxpayers hundreds of millions of dollars.
The Associated Press reviewed 38 legal claims, some of which had never been detailed by the press, in a report published on Friday. Several families said that their young kids were mistreated in the foster care sites, including allegations of sexual, physical and emotional abuse.
An attorney at one of the firms representing families told the news outlet that this was just "the tip of the iceberg." There are likely more lawsuits and legal challenges coming as a result of the immigration policy that forced families to be separated at the southern border, the lawyer added.
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The families are making legal claims under the Federal Tort Claims Act before filing lawsuits. The act holds the federal government responsible as a self-insurer and forces it to recognize liability for the negligent or wrongful acts of its employees acting in their official capacity.
These legal claims of mistreatment could end up costing American taxpayers $200 million, according to the Associated Press.
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One of the families cited in the Associated Press report came to the United States after Guatemalan officials burned down their home. The family fled to America in hopes of being granted asylum. Their 7-year-old son also had heart problems and required medical care.
But when they crossed the U.S.-Mexico border, U.S. agents separated the father from his son. The father was taken to a detention center in Georgia and the son went to a federally-funded foster care home for migrant children in New York. The boy later said he was repeatedly sexually molested by older boys in the home.
In April 2018, the Trump administration publicly announced its "zero tolerance" policy. The plan criminally prosecuted anyone who crossed the border illegally. Then-Attorney General Jeff Sessions said at the time that there "must be consequences for illegal actions."
Soon after the policy was put into place, news outlets began to report that migrant parents trying to come to the U.S. with their children were being criminally prosecuted. Their prosecution resulted in the separation of children from their parents. Roughly 3,000 children were taken from family members and shipped to foster care sites around the country as a result of the policy. Two months later, amid intense backlash, President Donald Trump signed an executive order halting family separations.
"We're going to keep families together but we still have to maintain toughness or our country will be overrun by people, by crime, by all of the things that we don't stand for and that we don't want," Trump said in his announcement about the executive order.
Even though Trump stopped separating families, the report by the Associated Press along with other legal filings and congressional records show that children suffered serious trauma at foster care sites across the country.
Earlier this year, senators demanded an investigation into sexual abuse at immigrant children's shelters. "Immigrant families and children kept in federal custody deserve to be treated with basic human dignity and respect, and should never be subjected to these forms of abuse," the lawmakers wrote in a letter to the Department of Health and Human Services Inspector General's Office.
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