Wait and see if this statement from the DHS gets as much play as the Biden misrepresentation did, especially from the Ministry of Democrat Propaganda, also known as the MSM.
ZitatIn the debate last night, Joe Biden decided to hammer President Trump for the family separation policy at the southern border. His main talking point was the approximately 500 children who have not been reunited with their parents. Glenn Beck reached out to the Department of Homeland Security for a response and read it on the air in his post-debate coverage. The response regarding family reunification came from Chase Jennings at DHS:
"This narrative has been dispelled on numerous occasions. DHS has taken every step to facilitate the reunification of these families where the parents wanted such reunification to occur. The simple fact is, after contact was made with the parents to reunite them with their children, many parents have refused. In the current litigation for example, out of the parents of 485 children whose plaintiff’s counsels have been able to contact, they have yet to identify a single family that wants their child reunited with them in their country. The result is the children remain in the U.S. while their parents remain in the home country. The reunification process is a whole of government approach involving CBP, ICE, and HHS."
It is not clear if these children arrived with their parents, who were then returned home, or if, as President Trump asserted, they had come with coyotes or human traffickers. Either option is possible, as Customs and Border Patrol (CBP) started getting aggressive about identifying minors who were with adults who were not their parents. One pilot program using a rapid DNA test found 30% of children were with an unrelated adult.