The government of El Salvador has said it won’t take deportees the U.S. is trying to return to their home country until it is satisfied that they have been reunited with family members.
The government’s stance is the latest international effort to push back at the Trump administration’s ‘zero tolerance’ immigration policy and the policy of childhood separations at the southern border.
President Trump on Friday signed an executive order to begin incarcerating parents with their children – but offered exceptions and did not reveal how it would handle the approximately 2,300 families already separated under the administration’s strict enforcement.
El Salvador said it will not issue travel documents for the migrants the U.S. wants to return until any issues related to separations of family members and children have been sorted out, the Washington Times reported.
The government of El Salvador has said it won’t take deportees the U.S. is trying to return to their home country until it is satisfied that they have been reunited with family members. Pictured: People who’ve been taken into custody sit in one of the cages at a facility in McAllen, Texas
El Salvador has contributed to the flow of immigrants through Mexico to the U.S. border. Some immigrants seek refugee status, citing the gang violence that exists in one of world’s deadliest countries.
Most immigrants, however, don’t get asylum and get flown home – a transaction that requires documentation.
Trump took a hard line on immigration at a Duluth rally Wednesday night, hours after signing his executive order.
![Deported from the United States Juan Lopez is embraced by family members after his arrival at the Air Force Base in Guatemala City, Wednesday, June 20, 2018. Lopez was among around 250 deported illegal migrants who arrived in Guatemala City on two chartered flights paid for by U.S. taxpayers](https://i.dailymail.co.uk/i/newpix/2018/06/22/01/4D81B40700000578-5872353-image-a-39_1529626586174.jpg)
Deported from the United States Juan Lopez is embraced by family members after his arrival at the Air Force Base in Guatemala City, Wednesday, June 20, 2018. Lopez was among around 250 deported illegal migrants who arrived in Guatemala City on two chartered flights paid for by U.S. taxpayers
![A pregnant woman from El Salvador seeking asylum touches her stomach at a Catholic Charities relief center on Sunday, June 17, 2018 in McAllen, Texas](https://i.dailymail.co.uk/i/newpix/2018/06/22/01/4D81B41300000578-5872353-image-a-38_1529626567516.jpg)
A pregnant woman from El Salvador seeking asylum touches her stomach at a Catholic Charities relief center on Sunday, June 17, 2018 in McAllen, Texas
He invoked MS-13, which has its roots in El Salvador.
‘We have taken them out of our country by the thousands,’ Trump told the crowd.
‘And these countries that send them back, we’re putting in legislation — we’re not giving them any more aid. When they send people up. Remember the original speech — right? My original speech,’ Trump said, referencing his campaign launch where he invoked Mexican ‘rapists’ he described as pouring into the country.
![Children and workers are seen at a tent encampment for illegal immigrant children in Tornillo, Texas, near El Paso](https://i.dailymail.co.uk/1/2018/06/21/04/wire-3370102-1529553246-474_634x431.jpg)
Children and workers are seen at a tent encampment for illegal immigrant children in Tornillo, Texas, near El Paso
‘They are sending – you remember those words? Everyone said, ‘Oh, how terrible.’ They are sending – well, let me tell you, they’re sending — and they’re not sending their finest. That I can tell you. And we’re sending them the hell back,’ he said.
Even after Trump signed his order, it was not clear how the administration would handle 2,300 children who have already been separated from families.
The administration in some cases can’t locate children or parents, and in other cases have already deported parents.
Days ago, child immigrants that were just 8 and 11 months old were sent to a foster facility in Michigan.
In one example, Blanca Orantes-Lopez two months ago brought her 8-year-old boy and his father from El Salvador and came to the U.S. illegally without proper documents in Texas, the Associated Press reported.
She is now in a federal prison in Seattle, while her son, Abel Alexander, is being kept in a children’s home in Kingston, New York. She says she doesn’t know when she will see him again.
‘I still haven’t been able to talk to him,” Orantes told the AP in a tearful interview from the prison where she is being held.
She was convicted of unlawful entry, sentenced to time-served, but still sent to a federal prison because of overflowing detention centers.