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U.S. District Judge Dana Sabraw scolded the Health and Human Services Department Friday, saying it was using safety concerns as "cover" to avoid meeting his July 26 deadline to reunite with their parents all 2551 children aged 5 to 17 who were detained at the border. Sabraw previously ordered HHS to return to their parents by July 10 all 102 children under 5 who were detained at the border. In response, HHS reunited all but 46, saying these children were ineligible for reunificaiton because verification wasn’t complete or because of safety concerns. (Kullgren, 7/15)

The Health and Human Services Department outlined a new, more accelerated plan to return nearly 3,000 migrant children to their parents by a July 26 deadline. But it also said that doing so required faster vetting procedures and would probably place the children in abusive environments or with adults falsely claiming to be their parents. In a court filing that included the new plan, Chris Meekins, the deputy assistant secretary of preparedness and response, said, “While I am fully committed to complying with this court’s order, I do not believe that the placing of children into such situations is consistent with the mission of H.H.S. or my core values.” The judge, Dana M. Sabraw of Federal District Court in San Diego, was not moved. (Dickerson, 7/14)

Looking to meet the judge’s deadline, the government has laid out a plan in which Immigration and Customs Enforcement will identify six to eight locations where as many as 200 children a day will be reunited with their parents. The focus now is on children ages 5 to 17, after the government reported last week that it had complied with an earlier order to first concentrate on kids under 5. Catholic Charities of San Antonio spent the weekend on alert for families to arrive at its modern headquarters on a leafy street just north of downtown in the Texas city. ICE said to prepare for anywhere between 100 and 400 people to be brought to the building during the next two weeks ahead of Sabraw’s deadline, said J. Antonio Fernandez, the group’s president. (Mehrotra, Epstein and Niquette, 7/16)

Democratic lawmakers are trying to keep up the pressure on the Trump administration over its struggles to reunite families separated at the southern border under the "zero tolerance" immigration policy. Members of the House and Senate are using every hearing and markup of health-related legislation to push for amendments aimed at holding the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) accountable. (Weixel, 7/13)

Escaping gruesome violence at the hands of police and gangs in Honduras, a mother and her daughter arrived in the U.S. on June 8 near McAllen, Texas, and turned themselves in to federal agents. They were then separated and held in custody 1,555 miles apart, according to court filings. The 12-year-old daughter is now among a couple thousand migrant children that the U.S. is working to reunite with parents over the next two weeks following a federal judge’s order last month. (Mehrotra, 7/14)

In the days after Ever Reyes Mejía was reunited with his 3-year-old son last Tuesday, the young father tried to make their lives seem normal again. The two kicked around a soccer ball and played with toy cars while staying at a volunteer’s home in Detroit. Mr. Reyes Mejía wrapped his son in tight embraces, promising he would never be alone again. Father and son were separated three months ago at a Texas migrant-detention center; the boy was sent to an agency in Michigan while Mr. Reyes Mejía was sent to another Texas facility. (Campo-Flores and West, 7/15)

Hermelindo Che Coc learned his son was coming home and immediately began to prepare for his arrival. Nearly two months had passed since he’d seen his 6-year-old boy after they were separated at the border while traveling from Guatemala to seek asylum. On Saturday, the father mopped floors and washed bed sheets at the home in the L.A. area where he was staying. He cooked a big pot of chicken soup, his son’s favorite. (Bermudez, 7/15)

Reuniting families can reduce the harm caused by forced separations, but the harmful effects can be long-lasting to both child and parent, an advocacy group warns in a report released Wednesday. Pivoting off work to reunify families separated at the U.S. border because of the Trump administration's "zero tolerance" policy, the Center for American Progress cautioned that keeping families together, but in detention, is not a healthy alternative. (Pitzi, 7/13)