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The Health and Human Services Department said on Monday that it will no longer be disclosing exactly how many children it is holding who have been torn from their parents as part of the Trump administration’s family separation policy.


The Department of Homeland Security revealed the first official count of separated children on June 16, disclosing that 1,995 minors had been separated from 1,940 adults from April 19 through May 31. On June 26, the HHS said the number was 2,047. That was the last time the Trump administration provided any updates.


This extreme lack of transparency is, to say the least, shady. HHS’s decision to withhold this information underscores that the Trump administration would prefer to leave people in the dark when it comes to the effects of the family separation policy. It also points to the fact that it has no real plan to reunite families and doesn’t want to take responsibility if things go wrong.

The news came on the same day that 11 senators, including Elizabeth Warren, Kirsten Gillibrand and Bernie Sanders, asked the HHS and DHS to provide an anonymized list of all migrant children and parents separated at the border by July 6. The letter also asks the agencies for weekly updates.

“We are deeply concerned by reports of chaotic attempts to reunify parents and children that have been separated at the border,” the letter read in part. “The hastily-signed order provided no clarity on how to reunify families, or how to handle families that have already been separated or new families that cross the border seeking asylum.” The letter also asked for a “detailed briefing” explaining how the HHS and DHS are working to reunite the families.

I have reached out to HHS to ask why it has made this decision and will update if I hear back.


Update, 9 p.m.: The Department of Health and Human Services responded with the following statement: