Office of the City Clerk - Record #: Or2018-326

• Record #: Or2018-326
• Type: Order
• Status: Passed
• Intro date: 6/27/2018
• Current Controlling Legislative Body: Committee on Finance
• Final action: 6/27/2018
• Title: Call for Corporation Counsel to participate in legal actions seeking to enjoin "zero tolerance" policy of criminally charging and separating families, and aiming at family reunification by way of amicus brief filings
• Sponsors: Burke, Edward M., Villegas, Gilbert, Maldonado, Roberto, Moreno, Proco Joe, Arena, John, Munoz, Ricardo, Reboyras, Ariel, Lopez, Raymond A., Santiago, Milagros
• Topic: CITY DEPARTMENTS/AGENCIES - Law

Date	Journal Page Number	Action By	Action	Result
6/27/2018		Committee on Finance	Recommended to Pass
6/27/2018		Committee on Finance	Direct Introduction
6/27/2018	79532	City Council	Passed	Pass

ORDER
WHEREAS, in May 201 S. The number of migrant children in United States custody surged by 2)% to 10,773 from 8,886 m April; and
WHEREAS, from April 19 to May 31, a total of 1,995 children who arrived with 1,940 adults were separated from them; and
WHEREAS, the increase is attributed to a newly-imposed ''zero tolerance" policy of forcibly separating families attempting an illegal border crossing or who lawfully enter seeking asylum ("the policy'"); and
WHEREAS, the policy rolled out by United States Attorney General Jefferson Sessions and the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) subjects those who cross the border illegally to criminal prosecution; and
WHEREAS, once the matter is classified as criminal, parents are jailed and. having effectively been separated, their children are sent to shelters or put into foster care as pan of the system set up for "unaccompanied minors;"" and
WHEREAS, this policy is a departure from previous approaches that generally had asylum-seeking migrant families processed by immigration courts through an administrative process that allowed families to be detained together or released with notices to appear at subsequent court proceedings: and
WHEREAS, once separated and improperly reclassified as unaccompanied minors, children fall under the purview ofthe DHS Office of Refugee Resettlement (ORR), which reportedly has more than 10,000 children in their network of 100 shelters across 14 states; and
WHEREAS, news outlets such as The New York Times report that parents and children have gone weeks without communicating or knowing each other"s whereabouts; and
WHEREAS, homfic stories mount by the day —children pried from a parent's grip, the use of false pretenses such as claiming a need to bathe or photograph the children in order to separate them from parents, a four-month old infant taken from her mother's arms as she nursed, mothers not given a chance to say goodbye to their child, inconsolable children in detention, and staff rep...