"The United States is for the first time sending illegal border-crossers to other cities for processing, transporting more than 3,000 each week from southern Texas and Arizona to other location as the government struggles to deal with surging numbers of nearly 100,000 migrants a month crossing the southern border."

"It is the first time in history the U.S. has transported immigrants to other localities because federal officials can't process them in time at their original point of entry, the official said. The government is required by law to process these border-crossers within 72 hours."

"CBP quietly approved the plan in early May to work with ICE to begin relocating immigrants from Rio Grande Valley, Texas, and Yuma, Ariz., to other locations in the southwest part of the United States."
​

Today is the deadline Judge Dana M. Sabraw gave the Trump administration for reuniting the thousands of families who were separated as a result of Trump's 'zero tolerance' policy, but over a thousand families remain apart. So, for this week's featured news story, we are sharing an update from the Washington Post on reunification and the challenges that remain. 

​Below is an excerpt of the article. To read the full article, click here. 

Government on track to reunite most families, but judge chides 'troubling' process. 
By: Nick Miroff 

The Trump administration said Tuesday it is on track to reunite the majority of separated migrant families ahead of a July 26 court deadline, but workers are still sorting through case files to determine whether hundreds of parents were deported without their children.

Government attorneys told U.S. District Court Judge Dana M. Sabraw, who mandated the reunifications last month and has overseen the process, that the government has given 1,012 parents their children back so far, out of 2,551 who were separated.

Hundreds more families are due to be reunited by the judge’s Thursday deadline, the attorneys said, which Sabraw praised as “a remarkable achievement.”

But the judge was less pleased with the government’s inability to say how many migrant parents have already been deported, or released from custody by Immigration and Customs Enforcement into the interior of the United States.

Sabraw ordered the government to provide those lists to the court by noon Wednesday, and suggested the administration has not been transparent about the whereabouts of 463 parents whose files indicate they are no longer in the United States.

The San Diego judge, who was appointed to the bench by George W. Bush in 2003, said the lack of information reflected disorganization at the heart of the Trump administration’s family separation system, which Trump halted in a June 20 executive order.

“Some of this information is unpleasant, but it’s the reality of the case, and the reality of a policy that was put in place that resulted in large numbers of families being separated without forethought as to reunification and keeping track of people,” he said.

“It appears there’s a large number of parents who are unaccounted for or who may have been removed without their child, and that is a deeply troubling reality.”

"NEW YORK (AP) — An immigrant father from Guatemala dotes over his despondent teenage daughter during a weekly 10-minute phone call, while other parents wait weeks for the phone to ring.

A mother in Louisiana has phone video chats with her detained 5-year-old son in Texas, while a Honduran asylum-seeker had actual face time with his little girl, visiting her in person. He made sure to bring along a McDonald's hamburger to share.
​
Immigrant parents who were separated from their children under President Donald Trump's "zero tolerance" policy for illegal border crossings are struggling to communicate by any means possible in the age of instant, international social media with sons and daughters kept in government-contracted facilities around the country. For most parents, phone calls have been the only connection to their children as the separations dragged on for weeks.

Honduran immigrant Carla Garcia waits each day in Baton Rouge, Louisiana, on calls for unscheduled telephone and video conversations with her son at a holding facility in Texas — calls she cannot return. She and 5-year-old Jonathan were separated after crossing the border together in late May. Garcia was released from detention a month later with an ankle monitor and moved in with relatives.

"I was happy to be able to see him, and then it was even more difficult to see him from far away," she said. "He just looked at me, worried."

Several parents say it has been difficult or impossible to maintain their composure as children break down in tears, complain of loneliness, ask for clues about when they might be released or think they were abandoned.

"She was crying, inconsolably," said Guatemalan immigrant Josue Aguilar about his 16-year-old daughter, who he believes is at a holding facility somewhere in Texas. "She said, 'I don't want to be here anymore.' I could only tell her to try and have a little patience."

Aguilar said he and his daughter have just enough time to console one another before the calls end. They are only allotted 10 minutes.

"They give her one call a week. Ten minutes. It's just not enough time," said Aguilar, who moved in with relatives in Atlanta after his release from detention to await asylum proceedings.

In other cases, parents and children are finding creative ways to cope. A 15-year-old boy tells his 5-year-old brother that their separated mom was working and that's the reason they're apart, says the lawyer for the mother.

Adrian Velasquez persuaded a social worker to text him three pictures of his 8-year-old son. The images show Jason doing math homework inside a government facility in Texas and standing alongside smiling children of his age.

Velasquez said his son initially threatened to break free and escape his location after they separated by authorities at the Texas border. A month later, he believes the boy has adapted and will eventually be freed without signs of emotional trauma.

"He is a really active kid," Velasquez said. "It's not going to affect him."

The Justice Department last week filed a plan to reunify more than 2,500 children age 5 and older by a court-imposed deadline of July 26. It was unclear how many of those families remain separated as the number of releases accelerated this week in Texas.

In rare instances, immigrant parents have been allowed to visit face-to-face with their children under supervision, as authorities take weeks to complete background checks and custody paperwork.

Asylum seeker and mother Digna Perez of El Salvador said the arrangement was stifling and upsetting.

"They didn't feel free to talk to me that way — not as if I were alone with them" said Perez of her 9-year-old son and 6-year-old daughter. She was separated from them in late May as they crossed from Mexico into El Paso, Texas. "They're always going to have this memory when they're older. They're not going to forget this easily, the separation."

Mario Romero of Honduras recalled an hour-long visit with his 10-year-old daughter, Fabiola, at the office of a child-detention contractor in El Paso, Texas — a few blocks from the border with Mexico.

He brought along a burger to share and told his daughter that he owed her another present — for a birthday she spent in detention.

"I could see her, I could hug her," Romero said. "Thank God I was given the opportunity to kiss her."

Perez and Romero were reunited with their children on Monday.

Released from an immigrant detention center on June 24, Manuel Marcelino Tzah played detective to connect with his 11-year-old daughter. He called home to Guatemala and found his daughter had left a working phone number with her mother.

"I started to cry when I heard her voice" after two months, he said. "She also cried. I told her, 'Don't worry, we will be together soon.'"

They were reunited at an airport in New York City on Tuesday.

Parents who remain in detention confront even greater difficulties in communicating with separated immigrant children.
​
Attorney Jose Xavier Orochena said jailed immigrant parents he has represented were at the mercy of social workers who coordinate outgoing calls from children at the Cayuga Center in New York.
"One has to wait for Cayuga to call the mother," he said. "From the detention center, no one can call the social worker.""

You can view this week's featured news story from the St. Louis Post Dispatch here as well. ​

​For this week's news story, we are sharing this article from the St. Louis Post-Dispatch about the Families Belong Together marches that happened across the country on Saturday. We hope you are inspired by the powerful moments it shares. 

"Hundreds of thousands of defiant and determined protesters gathered nationwide, their resounding pleas to keep families together echoing from coast to coast.

In major cities and small towns, crowds rallied against President Donald Trump's immigration policy. Galvanized by images of migrant children separated from their parents at the US southern border, they carried signs, chanted and called for an end to family separations.

They demanded the government quickly reunite families, their calls repeated from Washington to Los Angeles, to Chicago, Atlanta, Milwaukee, San Francisco and beyond.

Here are the top moments from the marches:

Broadway comes to Washington

The creator of the hit musical "Hamilton" dedicated a song to parents who are separated from their children.

"We're here because there's parents right now who can't sing lullabies to their kids," Lin-Manuel Miranda told the crowd in the nation's capital. "We're not going to stop until they can sing to their kids again."

With that, he launched into "Dear Theodosia," which tells the story of parents trying to make a better world for their children. In the musical, the lullaby is sung by two of America's founding fathers, Alexander Hamilton and Aaron Burr.

Maxine Waters scolds the President

US Rep. Maxine Waters spoke directly to the President about his immigration policies. And she was angry.

"How dare you?" Waters, a Democrat from California, said at the Los Angeles rally. "How dare you take the babies from mothers' arms? How dare you take the children and send them all across the country into so-called detention centers? Donald Trump, you think you can get away with everything, but you have gone too far when you are trying to break up families in the way that you do."

Protesters head to the White House

Protesters marched by the White House in Washington, as well as the Trump International Hotel on Pennsylvania Avenue. They yelled, "shame, shame, shame" and "Hey, hey, ho, ho, Donald trump has got to go." In New York City, thousands marched across the Brooklyn Bridge and massed outside Trump Tower to chant and wave signs.

But President Trump was not in either place.

Trump and his family stayed at Trump National Golf Club in New Jersey for the weekend. Protesters followed, of course, but they only got as close as downtown Bedminster, New Jersey, about 4 miles from the golf club.

Fire departments help cool protesters

It was blistering hot in some parts of the nation, with daytime temperatures hovering close to 90s and organizers urging crowds to drink water.

The protesters on the streets of Chicago found relief when the fire department sprayed them with water on the street.
Firetrucks sprayed water on the crowds in Washington, too, where two people were taken to a hospital for heat emergencies, DC Fire and EMS said.

Calls to abolish ICE ring out

US Sen. Elizabeth Warren joined the chorus of Democrats calling for US Immigration and Customs Enforcement to be replaced.

"The President's deeply immoral actions have made it obvious -- we need to rebuild our immigration system from top to bottom, starting by replacing ICE with something that reflects our morality and that works," Warren said at a rally in Boston.

Rep. Joe Kennedy III, a Democrat from Massachusetts, also addressed the Boston crowd.
"We stand up and we say: Not on our watch. Not while we have something to say about it," he said.

12-year-old makes impassioned plea

A child stole the show in Washington.

Leah, 12, the daughter of undocumented immigrant parents, took the stage and told the crowd about the her daily fear as the daughter of undocumented immigrants. Leah said she wants to be a role model for other children like her and the children who were separated from their families at the border.

"I don't like to live with this fear. It's scary. I can't sleep. I can't study. I am stressed," she said. "I am afraid that they will take my mom away while she is at work, out driving or at home."

John Legend has a message and a song

Singer John Legend had a passionate message for people at the rally in Los Angeles.
"I think some of us have a strong temptation to just disengage, but we can't. We can't do that. I can't do that. I have to do something."

He also had a musical gift. Legend sat down at a piano and played a new song, "Preach," which he said "feels right for this moment."

Legend was introduced by his wife, Chrissy Teigen, who was holding their infant son. Legend was one of several celebrities who attended the marches nationwide.

Grandfather's heartbreaking letter read at rally

In Washington, actress America Ferrera read a letter from a Salvadoran grandfather who lives in Oakland, California. He is separated from his granddaughter, who is being held in Manvel, Texas.

He wants her to come live with him, and was visited by a home investigator.

"I got the impression the investigator thought I didn't make enough money," the letter said. "I know I don't make enough money, but I make enough to care for (you). Everything I have I will give to you."

Singer Alicia Keys read an affidavit from a woman who wanted to know why her son was still detained at a facility in Oregon.

Keys brought her 7-year-old son, Egypt.

"I couldn't even imagine not being able to find him," Keys said about her son. "I couldn't imagine being separated from him or scared about how he is being treated. So this is all of our fight. Because if it can happen to any child, it can happen to my child and your child and all of our children."

First-timers travel hundreds of miles to protest

Two women from Fayetteville, North Carolina, traveled to Washington. They both said this was their first protest.

"Separating a child from a parent -- as a parent -- is the most inhumane thing ever," said Allison Thompson, who said she's a Republican and the mother of two kids. "There is just nothing worse to me."

Carrie Amabile carried a sign that said "Love thy neighbor."

"I shared with my daughters a video of the children's detention centers and we cried," Amabile said.

Atlanta protesters carry dolls in crates

In Atlanta, protesters carried a dog crate with baby dolls inside it, an apparent reference to the chain-link fences some migrants -- including children -- have been kept behind. During the protests, US

Rep. John Lewis and others criticized the Trump administration for separating children. "We must teach people in power that we will not be satisfied with the order of things," Lewis said.

CNN's Faith Karimi, Jay Croft, Dakin Andone, Ray Sanchez and Catherine Shoichet contributed to this report."

​You can view this article here as well. To see pictures and reports from the Families Belong Together march here in St. Louis, check out this article: "Protesters gather in downtown St. Louis to oppose Trump immigration policy"