WASHINGTON (Pakistan Point News / Sputnik - 15th August, 2018) The United States should immediately contact deported immigrant parents of 539 children still in US custody and bring the parents back the United States for family reunions, a coalition of 17 Democratic US Senators wrote in a letter to Department of Homeland Security (DHS) Secretary Kirstjen Nielsen on Tuesday.
Reunited families should then be released into the United States for courts to consider their asylum requests, the letter explained.
"We call on DHS to take immediate action to locate every deported parent abroad whose separated child remains in government custody," the senators wrote. "DHS should offer these parents an opportunity to return to the United States on a grant of humanitarian parole� to reunite with their child."
Reunited families should then be released into US communities to pursue their requests for asylum, the letter continued.
According to the letter, 386 parents have been deported and 539 children remain in US custody.
The letter was signed by Senators Kamala Harris, Dianne Feinstein, Robert Menendez, Patrick Leahy, Kirsten Gillibrand, Richard Blumenthal, Cory Booker, Tammy Duckworth, Jeff Merkley, Mazie Hirono, Catherine Cortez Masto, Sheldon Whitehouse, Tina Smith, Michael Bennet, Bernie Sanders, Bill Nelson and Elizabeth Warren.
