Agreement Allows 2,700 Children in Central America to Join Parents in U.S.

“When you’re a refugee, you typically have to come to the U.S. border to request protection via our asylum system,” said Justin Cox, a lawyer with the International Refugee Assistance Project, which helped represent the families. The Central American Minors program was designed as a workaround to reunite children with their parents, by allowing the kids to apply from their home countries.

Four families whose children had applied to the program and been conditionally approved filed a lawsuit against the Trump administration after it was canceled. They were joined by CASA, a Maryland-based immigration advocacy group.

The nearly 2,700 children covered by the settlement had been conditionally approved to join at least one of their parents in the United States, according to Mr. Cox.

Many were waiting for a medical check, a final step in the process, he said, when the Trump administration quietly stopped all processing shortly after coming into office. Seven months later, in August 2017, the White House officially announced the end of the program.

In December 2018, a judge for the United States District Court in San Francisco ruled that the government’s revocation of the conditional approvals for the child applicants was against the law. Last month, the same judge ordered the government to resume processing the children.