What measures has the Biden administration taken to reunite migrant children with their parents after the Trump administration's family separation policy?
Executive summary
The Biden administration created an interagency Family Reunification Task Force in February 2021 to locate and reunify children separated under the Trump-era “zero tolerance” policy and opened web portals and parole pathways to facilitate returns and legal processing [1] [2] [3]. The effort has identified thousands of separated children and reunited many families, while offering short-term humanitarian parole and support services — but the program’s reach, permanence and legal durability have been contested in court and subject to later policy rollbacks [4] [5] [6].
1. A whole-of-government task force to find families
Within weeks of taking office, President Biden ordered creation of the Interagency Task Force on the Reunification of Families, chaired by the Department of Homeland Security and including State, HHS and Justice, to comb government records, coordinate with NGOs and locate parents separated between January 20, 2017 and January 20, 2021 [1] [7] [3]. By combining records and partner outreach, the Task Force reported identifying 3,924 children it believes were separated during that period and documented that 2,926 children had been reunified either prior to the Task Force’s work or through its efforts as of February 1, 2023 [4].
2. Digital intake, humanitarian parole and logistical pathways
To streamline reunifications the administration launched a public portal (together.gov / juntos.gov) and a process enabling parents to apply for humanitarian parole and travel documents so they could reunite with children in the United States, and the State Department sped up processing of required travel documents [3] [5] [8]. The Task Force also referred families to the International Organization for Migration (IOM) and used projects funded through State and DHS to locate parents in their home countries and refer eligible families into parole procedures [4] [9].
3. Services provided to reunited families and goals for stability
Reunification efforts went beyond locating parents — the administration provided behavioral health case management, assessments and referrals, and sought options for “long-term legal stability” for families reunited, including exploring statuses that would allow temporary residency and work authorization for parents brought in under reunification programs [4] [8] [10]. The DHS fact sheets note referrals and service numbers: hundreds received behavioral-health support and thousands were reached through UNHCR- and IOM-funded outreach, reflecting a combined humanitarian and administrative approach [4].
4. Scale, remaining gaps and contested counts
Officials and media have reported different tallies at different times: a February 2023 DHS review listed nearly 3,000 reunifications connected to the Task Force while contemporaneous accounts cited that “more than 600” children had been reunited through the Task Force’s more active phase, and that roughly 1,000 children remained separated as of late 2021 estimates [4] [5] [9]. Those uneven figures reflect both prior reunifications carried into Task Force totals and the practical difficulty of locating parents in remote communities or countries, which the administration acknowledged when expanding outreach with partners like the IOM [4] [9].
5. Legal and political headwinds that affect permanence
Measures taken by the Biden administration — including the creation of parole pathways and expanded temporary residency options tied to reunification — have faced later political and legal challenges: subsequent policy changes sought to end or curtail family‑reunification parole programs and those moves prompted litigation and temporary judicial blocks, illustrating that reunification gains can be vulnerable to changing administrations and court intervention [6] [11] [12]. Advocacy groups and some Task Force supporters urged longer-term residency solutions than the three-year parole windows discussed in program rollouts, highlighting an implicit tension between humanitarian remediation and immigration-policy limits [9] [10].
6. What reporting does and does not show
Government fact sheets and press reports clearly document the Task Force’s creation, outreach methods, service referrals, identified caseload and the use of humanitarian parole and a public portal to reunify families [1] [4] [3]. Public sources also show ongoing legal challenges and efforts by later administrations to alter parole programs [6] [12]. What the available reporting does not provide in full detail — and thus cannot be asserted here — are comprehensive, independently audited accounts of long-term legal outcomes for every reunited family, or a full tally of reunification success rates after 2023; those remain gaps in the public record cited above [4] [5].