AILSA CHANG, HOST:
One of the most controversial moves made by President Trump during his first term was the forced separation of immigrant parents from their children. The ACLU filed a lawsuit. That led to a settlement. And the ACLU now says that since Trump returned to power, the settlement is under threat, and some of those families have been separated again. Reporter Mark Betancourt with The California Newsroom has been covering the story and joins us now. Hi, Mark.
MARK BETANCOURT, BYLINE: Hi, Ailsa.
CHANG: So I know that you've been covering the story for a while now, but can you just remind us what this settlement was all about in the first place?
BETANCOURT: Yeah, sure. So the agreement stems from a federal class action lawsuit that was brought by the ACLU known as Ms. L v. ICE. Ms. L is a pseudonym for a Congolese woman who was separated from her young daughter at the border near San Diego in 2017. That's when the first Trump administration started splitting up undocumented parents from their children to deter them from crossing, basically. This is - this went on for about a year, and more than 5,000 families were separated.
CHANG: Right, thousands - and I remember that there was so much public outrage about this, and then the administration ended this policy, right?
BETANCOURT: Yes. The Trump administration shut it down, but these thousands of families were still deeply affected by the separation and many still are. So ultimately, the government signed the settlement agreement that basically promised reparations. The government promised to reunite the families and streamline the process for them to seek asylum. And also, it would pay for services to help them get back on their feet, like housing assistance, mental health care and legal help navigating the immigration system. But the ACLU says the current administration has been undermining all of that.
CHANG: Wait, how so? Like, what is the ACLU saying that the government has been doing?
BETANCOURT: Well, even though the settlement requires all those services I mentioned, the government just stopped paying for many of them this summer with really no warning, which meant that assistance for these families ground to a halt. The ACLU was in court for months fighting to get the funding back, and eventually they did.
CHANG: OK. So does that mean all of this has been resolved?
BETANCOURT: Well, there are other issues. In court filings, the government says it will now charge these families to renew their immigration documents. But the ACLU says that under the settlement agreement, that should be free. Organizations serving the families say many of them can't afford hundreds or thousands of dollars in fees every year, and if they don't have those papers, they're more vulnerable to deportation.
CHANG: What do we know about why the government is even doing this?
BETANCOURT: Well, advocates say this is all just a way for the Trump administration to deport more immigrants. But attorneys for the DOJ have been saying that the new fees are required by the One Big Beautiful Bill Act that was passed back in July and that the funding was cut because the president wants the federal government to spend less money, and because they have a problem with the DEI program of one of the contractors. That was why they canceled that contract. Nevertheless, the judge overseeing the case has ruled that the government was breaching the settlement agreement in several ways.
CHANG: Wait, but what about the families themselves? Like, some of them have already been deported, right?
BETANCOURT: That's right. The ACLU says that while services were on hold, at least four families were deported, and some were actually separated in the process, which means some of them were deported and some of them were left back in the U.S. The ACLU filed a motion earlier this month to get the government to bring those families back. Lee Gelernt, the lead attorney for the ACLU in this case, says the government isn't always reporting when it detains these families.
LEE GELERNT: For all we know, there are many, many more, and it could be the tip of the iceberg if we don't ultimately prevail in court to have these individuals brought back.
BETANCOURT: The government hasn't responded to the ACLU's motion yet. That's due later this week. But in the past, they've said that only the Department of Homeland Security and not the court can decide who gets deported. DHS told me they don't separate families. They give parents the option of being deported with or without their children. But deportation is just one piece of this. The ACLU says that because some people can't pay these new fees, their work permits are expiring, and they're losing their jobs.
CHANG: So what's next at this point? Like, what will you be watching for in the coming months?
BETANCOURT: Well, all of this has been a real setback for families and their advocates. Support services are still ramping back up. It'll take weeks for them to be fully available to people. And all of these questions about whether the government has to bring back these families who were deported, whether the government has to tell the ACLU if it deports anyone else, if people have to pay these new fees, it'll all be decided by various courts in the months to come.
CHANG: That was Mark Betancourt of The California Newsroom. Thank you so much, Mark.
BETANCOURT: Thanks, Ailsa. Transcript provided by NPR, Copyright NPR.
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