Democratic nominee Joe Biden is pledging that if he’s elected president, he will sign an executive order to form a task force that will focus on reuniting the 545 immigrant children who’ve been separated from their families.
The pledge was discussed in a digital ad the campaign has started airing in Arizona, Florida, North Carolina, Pennsylvania and Nevada, a Biden campaign official said.
“On his first day as president, Joe Biden will issue an executive order creating a federal task force to reunite these children with their parents,” the narrator says.
More on this: Lawyers have not been able to reach the parents of 545 children who had been separated from their families by US border officials between 2017 and 2018, according to a court filing last week.
Hundreds of parents may also have been deported without their children.
The filing from the Justice Department and the American Civil Liberties Union is part of an ongoing effort to identify and reunite families separated by the Trump administration, more than two years after the "zero tolerance" policy was created.
While a federal court order forced the reunification of many of those families, an explosive government watchdog report released last year revealed there could be thousands more who hadn't previously been acknowledged by officials.