The class-action settlement reached Monday between the U.S. government and the American Civil Liberties Union, which has represented thousands of migrant families who were separated from their children at the U.S.-Mexico border, is worth celebrating. It provides a fair conclusion to one of our country’s most shameful policies. It’s also the very least we can do for those so egregiously harmed.
In 2017 and 2018, more than 5,000 families crossing the U.S. border were systematically separated. As parents awaited deportation, their children were sent to juvenile centers across the country. Even now, we’re still not sure where they all are. According to the ACLU, more than 1,000 children have not been reunited with their families. They fell off the map thanks to an administration that, in the words of the court, “tracked property more diligently than they tracked the whereabouts of little children.”
The trauma has been severe. Some children did not recognize their parents when reunited. Babies as young as six months old were held alone in detention centers. Parents had no way of contacting their children; in many cases, the government had no idea where they were.
This painful episode, part of a “zero-tolerance” strategy of immigration enforcement, shows our country at its most inhumane. Thus we urge U.S. District Judge Dana M. Sabraw to approve the settlement with all due haste.
The settlement includes four main points.
First, families that were separated will be granted an interview with an asylum officer. While their case is being heard, families will receive work authorization and housing benefits. If the families’ asylum request is approved, they’ll be on the path to permanent residency and eventual citizenship. Families will also be able to petition to bring their immediate family members to the U.S.
Second, the agreement contains a component that prohibits the federal government from separating families for the next eight years. In our view, the policy should never be used again. One imagines public outcry would be sufficient to ever again tear a young child away from their parents, but the prohibition is necessary.
Third, the federal government will continue to fund efforts to find the missing children and unite them with their families.
And lastly, reunited families will be given access to mental health resources. 
IF APPROVED, the settlement, which includes no financial compensation, would put an end to years of legal efforts by the ACLU and others. And while it could close “the darkest chapter of the Trump administration,” according to Anthony D. Romero, executive director of the American Civil Liberties Union, “the damage inflicted on these families will forever be tragic and irreversible.”
Romero is right. And the settlement comes at the right time. It is an urgent reminder of how our country, even in the midst of record levels of immigration, cannot lose sight of our values.
Because we have, and we could again. Next month, Massachusetts will begin to limit emergency shelter programs in response to 7,000 migrant families who have come to the state, contradicting a 40-year-old right-to-shelter law. Massachusetts has 7 million residents. It has a rainy day fund of $7.2 billion and about $1.3 billion from previous years’ surpluses.
In a statement, Massachusetts Gov. Maura Healey laid the blame at the feet of the federal government. This is disingenuous at best. We undoubtedly need new immigration laws. But without a speaker, and as war rages in Ukraine and Gaza, the chances are close to zero. Surely Gov. Healey realizes this.
“It’s nothing against the people who are coming,” said State Representative Steven Xiarhos, a Republican from Cape Cod who is helping lead the charge to end the shelter law. “It’s the amount of people, in a short amount of time. It’s very hard to keep up, and we can’t afford it.”
Winters in Massachusetts are brutal. The state can afford to offer shelter. And as we attempt to move beyond family separation to a more humane treatment of immigrants, we would argue it can’t afford not to.
