Last month the federal government announced a proposed settlement agreement in the class action lawsuit brought by the American Civil Liberties Union on behalf of immigrant parents who were wrongfully separated from their children at the border under the Trump administration’s zero-tolerance policy. On Dec. 8, a federal court will hold a hearing and consider whether it should grant final approval of the settlement.

If approved, the settlement would provide families with some temporary benefits such as work authorization, short-term housing medical assistance, including behavioral health services. It also would provide them with an opportunity to apply for permanent immigration status through the asylum system. While it will not provide a lawyer to represent them, it will offer immigration legal services like a help desk to offer counseling, help complete forms and make referrals to attorneys who might take a case pro bono. And for the next eight years, it would bar separation in most instances where families are apprehended at the border.

But as a whole, the proposed settlement falls far short of our government’s moral obligation to meaningfully redress the harm it inflicted on more than 5,000 children and their parents. The government’s short-term and impermanent relief denies families the stability and support they deserve as they piece their lives back together. Instead, the federal government should — and can still — provide separated families with permanent immigration status, monetary damages and accountability for the harm they continue to endure.

Read more at The New York Times