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Maryland, Other States Plan To Sue Over Family Separations

BALTIMORE (WJZ) — Maryland's Attorney General has announced the state will filing a lawsuit against the Trump administration over immigration policies, joining several other states contending there are legal problems with the executive order the president signed Wednesday.

Maryland Attorney General Brian Frosh tweeted the announcement Thursday.

The lawsuit is expected to be formally filed early next week.

Frosh also sent a letter to the Secretary of Health and Human Services and the Secretary of Homeland Security demanding to know the status and location of immigrant children separated from their parents at the border and being held in Maryland.

WJZ has learned the federal government brought more than 60 migrant children to Maryland after separating them from their parents.

Nithya Nathan-Pineau is an attorney and director of the children's program at the Captial Area Immigrants Rights Coalition. She told WJZ Investigative Reporter Mike Hellgren her organization has worked with children as young as toddlers who have been removed from their parents and brought to Maryland.

"It's heartbreaking. it's heartbreaking for our staff who interviewed the children and found out they are angry and find out they are crying," she said. "Being forcibly separated from their parents is so fresh and so raw for these kids."

Nathan-Pineau said it is difficult to get information from children as they try to build cases for asylum.

"We've worked hard to interview them and put the puzzle pieces together," she said. "It's very common when working wit children, family members have shielded them."

Some parents who were detained for illegally crossing the border are being held at facilities around the state, including Howard, Anne Arundel and Frederick counties.

Maryland Rep. Elijah Cummings, a Democrat who has been outspoken on the separation of families, had a direct message for President Donald Trump in a new interview.

"He created this policy, and he carried it out and I would just say to the president, 'Mr. President, you broke up families. You broke them up and now you have to fix them by bringing them back together again.' I do consider it a very deep and unfortunate situation where children have been harmed already.

The president has stressed the need for greater security at the border. The Pentagon is now looking at housing as many as 20,000 children at military bases, although none of those reportedly being considered is in Maryland.

Washington Attorney General Bob Ferguson made the announcement Thursday outside a federal prison in the city of SeaTac, Washington -- south of Seattle -- where about 200 immigration detainees have been transferred, including dozens of women separated from their children under the administration's "zero tolerance" policy. It calls for prosecuting all migrants caught illegally entering the country.

Ferguson said the separations violate the due process rights of children and their parents and that Trump's executive order halting the practice has not resolved the legal concerns.

"This is a rogue, cruel and unconstitutional policy," Ferguson said. "We're going to put a stop to it."

The lawsuit would be filed in the U.S. District Court in Seattle.

The states set to join Ferguson's lawsuit are Massachusetts, California, Maryland, Oregon, New Mexico, Pennsylvania, New Jersey and Minnesota. New York has separately announced plans to sue.

Ferguson has repeatedly challenged the administration, most notably when he successfully sued to block Trump's initial travel ban against several mostly Muslim countries. It caused chaos at airports when it rolled out in January 2017. A third version of the policy took effect but the U.S. Supreme Court is considering it.

Ferguson and Washington Gov. Jay Inslee expressed alarm after learning last week that U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement was transferring some detainees to federal prisons, including dozens of mothers who had been separated from their children to the Federal Detention Center at SeaTac.

"The Trump administration's new family separation policy is inflicting intentional, gratuitous, and permanent trauma on young children who have done nothing wrong and on parents who often have valid claims for refugee or asylum status," they wrote in a letter to the administration.

A U.S. judge in San Diego is considering whether to issue a nationwide injunction sought by the American Civil Liberties Union that would order the administration to reunite 2,300 children with their parents.

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