Children Still Separated at Border.
CAMEROTA: Remember the horrible stories of all the children who were separated from their parents at the border by immigration officials at the direction of the Trump administration? Well, if you think that all of those kids have been reunited with their families, you're wrong. Five hundred and forty-five children are still without their parents. It turns out that hundreds of those parents were deported without anyone knowing their address. The American Civil Liberties Union has been trying to reunite these families along with the organization called Justice in Motion. And joining us now is Cathleen Caron, the founder of -- the executive director of Justice in Motion. Cathleen, thanks so much for being here. It got all of our attention when we saw 545 kids still not reunited with their families. How can that still be the number all these years later?</s>CATHLEEN CARON, EXECUTIVE DIRECTOR, JUSTICE IN MOTION: Well, there was a huge batch of parents that weren't revealed to the ACLU and the steering committee members that were court appointed, along with Kinds (ph) and Women's Refugee Commission and the law firm Paul Weiss (ph). These numbers and people were not revealed to us. So it wasn't until an internal government report revealed that there were 1,000 more families separated. And then the government refused to hand over the money, the ACLU had to sue and finally get the information and now we're searching.</s>CAMEROTA: Where have these 545 kids been?</s>CARON: Well, we're trying to figure that out. I mean we, Justice in Motion, focuses on what we call the unreachables, the hardest of them to find. So once the rest of the steering committee partners have determined we can't find them, they're unreachable, they turn to Justice in Motion and the Justice in Motion Defender Network. We have over 46 organizations and human rights lawyers we collaborate with in Central America and we're deploying them to do arduous searches to find those parents and to figure out what is happening with their children.</s>CAMEROTA: But, I mean, in terms of these 545 kids, some of whom were under five years old, have they been in shelters? Have they been with relatives? Where have they been since 2017?</s>CARON: All of the above. We're trying to determine that case by case, family by family. But what we're finding are some are in foster care in the United States, some have been released to family members in the United States and a small amount have been returned. But they're not with their families. And this is why it's so important that we find them all, talk to the parents and figure out if what the parent -- to help the parent gain control over the future of their children, because kids can never be taken away from their parents.</s>CAMEROTA: Well, what the DHS is suggesting is that these parents don't want to be reunited with their kids. They brought their kids here to the U.S. They were seeking a better life or they -- you know, sometimes the DHS suggests that they were somehow trying to scam the U.S. Either way, they don't want the kids back is what the DHS is suggesting because they made it here to the U.S. and that was their plan. Here's the statement from a spokesperson. The simple fact is, after contact has been made with the parents to reunite them with their children, many parents have refused. Is that your experience?</s>CARON: No, it's not. Its' -- the experience is that these parents are making really difficult, desperate decisions to protect their family members. The Trump administration purported to claim that this decision to separate families was to deter migration. If you want to deter migration, you support the rule of law and democracy in these countries. People are fleeing because there's desperate -- they're desperate to protect their families. They had no choice but to go north and that they don't necessarily -- some of these families want the kids to come back because it's too dangerous. They want to be reunited in the United States, which is never their plan to leave them behind.</s>CAMEROTA: Right, so they -- some of them, most, wanted to apply for asylum because they were coming from violent situations and they still want to be with their kids. And, in fact, I know that you have witnessed some of these reunifications.</s>CARON: That's exactly right. We had, in January, there were nine parents who the ACLU successfully won the right to return and we accompanied, along with our partners in the steering committee, accompanied these families back and they came into the L.A. airport. And seeing them reunite with their kids, after many, many months, sometimes years being separated, it's, you know, you feel it. It hits you right in the heart because we all know kids, right? And to have kids forcibly taken away from you and then witness the joy of their reunification, I mean, it makes you keep going to keep doing this work, to find these parents. We really know why. We see it, how important it is.</s>CAMEROTA: Are you going to be able to reunite all of these 545 kids?</s>CARON: Well, we're doing our best. We're finding them, figuring out where the -- what the situation is, where their kids are, telling the court what should happen, you know, what the parents want to happen with these kids. And we're pushing forward for the ones that we can fight to get back to be reunited in the United States with their families.</s>CAMEROTA: Cathleen Caron, thank you very much for giving us this update. Obviously, we will stay on this. The -- your organization is Justice in Motion. Please let us know how all of these reunification efforts go.</s>CARON: Thank you.</s>CAMEROTA: Thank you. And CNN's debate coverage continues, next.