NEW: Internal DHS watchdog found that the Trump admin. anticipated it would separate 26,000 children if 'zero tolerance' policy of 2018 was allowed to continue, and that the agency knew it lacked the technology to track and reunite children with parents.
Wednesday's report said CBP officials knew ahead of time that it lacked the proper technology to track and reunify children with their parents, but forged ahead with the policy anyway.
"Because of these IT deficiencies, we could not confirm the total number of families DHS separated during the Zero Tolerance period," the report said.The 60-page report said that CBP officials knew about the deficiencies in their data and technology system when they were planning zero tolerance, and still estimated they would separate 26,000 children without a clear plan to track and reunify them with their parents.
DHS eventually added features to its system that would allow officers to record the separation and reunification of family members, as well as the time the child spent in custody, but it was not until August of 2018, after the policy had ended, the report said. The poor tracking not only led to the potential for separated children to get lost in the system, it also led to chaotic reunification efforts as officers struggled through a lengthy process to determine family relationships. In one case in July 2018,in a parking lot outside an ICE facility in Texas where their parents were being held because there was not a clear process to match them with their parents.
"Under a normal operational cadence, we would have tweaked or adjusted DHS data systems, trained our officers, prepared our detention providers. But not of these steps were taken," said Andrew Lorenzen Straight, former ICE deputy assistant director for custody management who now works at the Lutheran Immigration and Refugee Service as the director for children and family services.
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