Early on, White House Chief of Staff said that the children would be placed in “foster care or whatever.”

Under federal court order the administration reversed course and said it would seek to reunite the children with their parents. It soon became clear that no records were kept of which children belonged to which parents, and DNA samples were taken in an attempt to realize reunifications.

Before Trump ordered the reunifications, many parents were already deported while their children remained in the U.S. The government admits that 463 parents fell into this category (all government figures are suspect, since it tries to cover up the reality).

Many of these deported parents were fleeing with their children from extreme violence in Guatemala, El Salvador and Nicaragua. Where they are in those countries is a mystery, since they have to hide to attempt to avoid the violence they fled from. Obviously, it is very difficult to reunite these families.

Making light of this situation with a sick joke, Trump proposed that the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) be in charge of finding the parents. The ACLU is one of the groups taking legal steps against the whole evil and cruel “zero tolerance” policy.

Reports from immigration lawyers say that new asylum seekers are being summarily denied asylum at the border. In June Attorney General Jeff Sessions announced that fleeing from gang and domestic violence – what most cite as their reason for seeking asylum – would no longer be considered a valid reason for giving them asylum. A phone call from an official informs the parents that they do not have a valid case, and they are not even granted an interview, and not allowed in.

On August 7 the ACLU filed a suit in federal court challenging the new policy, arguing it violates due process “in numerous aspects”.

The ACLU filed an earlier suit arguing that many of the parents were coerced or misled to signing forms on which the authorities say they “voluntarily” agreed to be deported. The ACLU charges that many could not read the forms and were confused about what they were agreeing to. Many of these asylum seekers are indigenous, and do not read English or Spanish.

The forms contained three choices. One was “Do you agree to be deported and reunited with your child outside?” Those who checked that box were then deported and their children left behind.

Another was “Do you agree to be deported but reunited with your child before?” Those who checked that box were reunited with their children, if they could be matched up (hundreds of children have yet to be matched with their parents). These families are reunited — in jail.

The third alternative was “Do you want to speak with your lawyer?” One immigration lawyer reported that a client who checked that box was accosted by an officer who said to her, “Don’t you want to be with your child? Don’t you want to be reunited with your child?”

According to administration figures, 105 of the approximately 3,000 children separated from their parents are under the age of five. Some of these were still breast feeding. The government claims to have reunited 57 of them. The remaining 46 won’t be reunited with their parents, because the government claims the parents are criminals or otherwise unfit. It gives no information backing up its determination. The 46 will now presumably placed in Kelly’s “foster homes or whatever.”

Hundreds of parents with children over five years old have been similarly ruled as unfit to be reunited with their children.

More information has been uncovered by investigative reporters, lawyers for the parents and their children, and even observant bystanders.

One of the latter was Lianna Dunlap in Phoenix, Arizona. She noticed white vans loaded with children pulling up to a vacant office building behind her house on June 4. The next day she videotaped more children being led into the building. She never saw children leave or go outside for three weeks, when she and her neighbors saw up to 80 children being led out. The windows were blacked out, so sunlight never entered the building. She contacted local media, which is how immigration reporters found out about it.

They discovered that the site had been leased in March for five years by a private contractor, MVM, a private company contracted by Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE). MVM admitted that the building had no kitchen and few toilets. It turns out that ICE has been using private contractors to use whatever buildings they operate as detention centers for the asylum-seeking parents and their separated children. (There is a larger story of private prisons being used for regular prisoners, under contracts granted by federal and state prisons.)

Immigrant advocates report that some children have been released from ICE contractor sites with scabies and lice. A Chicago contractor, Heartland Alliance, is being investigated for abuse and neglect of immigrant children. The Washington Post reported that at one Heartland Alliance site a boy was repeatedly injected with a drug that made him drowsy, while another boy was denied medication for weeks after inuring his arm. It also reported that children were surveilled with hidden cameras and prevented from hugging their bothers and sisters.

An article from the Center for Investigating Reporting shows that some $1.5 billion has been paid by the federal government in the last four years beginning under Obama to companies operating immigrant youth detention centers that faced accusations of serious lapses in care.

Children held at the Shiloh Treatment Center in Texas were restrained and injected with powerful anti-psychotic drugs against their will, making them dizzy, listless, obese, even incapacitated.

On August 8, the human rights group Dream Defenders held a national day of action at offices of the GEO Group across the country. The GEO Group is ICE’s single biggest contractor to run private immigrant prisons. In retaliation, GEO Group has threatened to sue the Dream Defenders.

The separation of children from their parents seeking asylum under Trump’s “zero tolerance” policy, even if they are now reunited, and the new policy of rejecting them at the border, has had the effect that Trump aimed for: frightening would be asylum seekers from even trying.

Trump’s anti-immigrant campaign also includes widening deportation of mainly Latino workers without papers. But his sights are also set on greatly reducing legal immigration, as his blocking of asylum seekers and his ban on Muslim immigrants indicates.

In a recent tweet Trump wrote “I would be willing to ‘shut down’ government if the Democrats do not give us the votes for Border Security, which includes the Wall! Must get rid of Lottery, Catch and Release etc. and finally go to a system of Immigration based on MERIT! We need great people coming into our country!”

The “Lottery” refers to a policy originally set up to give applicants from certain countries Green Cards which would allow them to come and work in the U.S., to increase diversity. Only a small number of applicants would be chosen by lottery. “Catch and Release” refers to previous practice of allowing those seeking to immigrate into the country to be released into the general population while awaiting immigration courts to adjudicate their requests.

One aspect of his idea of “merit” was expressed a few months ago, when he said he didn’t want people from “shithole countries” like Haiti and African countries to immigrate, but people from countries like Norway were fine. That is, white people.

Another aspect of Trump’s idea of “merit” is to keep out the great unwashed hordes – ordinary workers and peasants. Some with advanced degrees needed by the technology sector would be allowed in.

Barry Sheppard