June 6, 2018

Federal Judge Strikes a Blow Against the Trump Administration’s Separation of Families at the Border

Government’s conduct “shocks the conscience,” he wrote.

A child and her mother at a May rally to protest the Trump administration's "zero-tolerance" policies.Eric Gay/AP

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A federal lawsuit challenging the Trump administration’s policies of forcibly separating parents from their children at the border will be allowed to proceed, a federal judge ruled today. The lawsuit was filed by the ACLU earlier this February after a woman seeking asylum from the Democratic Republic of Congo was forcibly separated from her 7-year-old daughter.

The Trump administration sought to dismiss the suit, but Judge Dana M. Sabraw allowed the case to go forward on due process claims. “At a minimum, the facts alleged are sufficient to show the government conduct at issue shocks the conscience and violates Plaintiffs’ constitutional right to family integrity,” he wrote. 

Read the decision below. 

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