Obama, like Trump, grappled with family immigration
SANTA ANA, Calif. — The Trump administration isn’t the first to grapple with the question of how to handle tens of thousands of immigrant families stopped along the U.S.-Mexico border.
Four years ago, Barack Obama faced a similar crisis when record numbers of Central American immigrants fleeing violence began showing up at the border. Officials had to deal with the same court case the current administration began fighting Thursday, a day after President Donald Trump issued a new executive order to stop separating migrant families whose parents were arrested for illegally entering the country.
More than 60,000 family “units” — which the U.S. government defines as a parent and child — were stopped along the border in the 2014 fiscal year, a fourfold increase from a year earlier. In the last fiscal year, that number exceeded 70,000.
Initially, the Obama administration released mothers and children with notices to appear in immigration courts in the cities where they were headed. At times, immigrants were transported from Texas to Border Patrol facilities in other states so agents could keep up with ballooning arrivals.