Closing Homestead detention center a noble goal, but reuniting migrant children with relatives should be the priority

Democrats in the U.S. House, now in the majority and flexing their muscle, have long denounced, rightly so, the Trump administration’s “zero tolerance” policy, under which adults who illegally crossed the border were criminally prosecuted.

As a result of the misbegotten policy, parents were separated from their children, who could not accompany them to jail.

The policy was the center of attention Tuesday as the House Judiciary Committee held its first hearing to question the people who crafted the controversial policy and those who enforce it. The ultimate goal must be to more quickly unite the children who are in detention with parents or other relatives in this country.

So far, the process has been sluggish, with children and young teens detained indefinitely. That shouldn’t be.

The issue hits home in Miami-Dade County. The Homestead Migrant Child Detention Facility houses 1,600 unaccompanied minors between the ages of 13 and 17 who have crossed the U.S.-Mexico border. Many came without their parents. Others may have been separated from them. This is another problem with what has been a process as haphazard as it has been cruel. It remains unclear just how the children got to this country, clearly making finding parents and other relatives more difficult.

We commend rookie Miami Rep. Debbie Mucarsel-Powell, a member of the Judiciary Committee and Congressional Hispanic Caucus, for taking the lead. Last week, she brought a congressional delegation to the Homestead facility and left visibly upset at the what she saw. “It had a prison-like feeling,” said Mucarsel-Powell, whose district includes Homestead.

The lawmakers held a news conference after the visit and vowed to work to get it shut down. It’s a noble goal. However, their efforts must be rooted in reality. Last month, according to WLRN News, Border Patrol says that it had apprehended more than 5,000 unaccompanied children at the border. Most of them came from Guatemala, El Salvador and Honduras. They have to be housed somewhere.

Lawmakers pledged to work to reunite them with their families already in this country. They would be wise to make this goal their priority.

Tuesday’s hearing was the committee’s first opportunity to grill immigration officials on Capitol Hill over the roll-out and subsequent consequences of the bungled policy. With Democrats in the majority, the House committee now has the teeth and, it is hoped, the bite.

Among those testifying was Scott Lloyd, the former head of the Office of Refugee Resettlement, the agency tasked with caring for unaccompanied migrant children. He admitted that unlike colleagues, he did not raise concerns about the implications of zero tolerance.

The policy has come under renewed scrutiny following a Health and Human Services inspector general report that found thousands more children had been separated than previously acknowledged. Of the more than 2,000 children who have been identified, many have been reunited with their parents, according to court filings in an ongoing family-separation lawsuit.

Still, too many remain separated from any adult relatives. This administration must take seriously its moral obligation to correct this.