A US federal judge will hold a hearing Friday on whether the Trump administration is in contempt of court over a now-elapsed deadline for reuniting migrant children taken from their parents at the Mexican border.
The government said Thursday that hundreds of families it broke up have not been reunited.
Ruling in the drama that triggered worldwide outrage over President Donald Trump's "zero tolerance" policy against undocumented migrants, Judge Dana Sabraw had ordered that all eligible migrant families be brought back together by 6:00 pm (2200 GMT) Thursday.
Officials said in a court filing that 1,442 children aged five and older had been reunited with their parents.
A further 378 children had already been released under other "appropriate circumstances," the filing said, but added that more than 700 children remained in custody.
The government insisted the deadline had been met. It said the families of those 700-plus children were ineligible, either because family ties had not been confirmed, or that the parent had a criminal record, a communicable disease or could not be found.
The controversial separations began in May, when migrants entering illegally were detained en masse, and their children taken to detention centers and shelters.
The American Civil Liberties Union, which brought the lawsuit to reunite the families, said Thursday that the government was manipulating the figures to give a false impression.
"These parents and children have lost valuable time together that can never be replaced. We're thrilled for the families who are finally reunited, but many more remain separated," Lee Gelernt, deputy director of the ACLU's Immigrants' Rights Project, said in a statement.
"The Trump administration is trying to sweep them under the rug by unilaterally picking and choosing who is eligible for reunification. We will continue to hold the government accountable and get these families back together."
The judge, based in San Diego, is to hold at hearing at 1:30 pm (2130 GMT).
If he holds the court in contempt, he might ask the ACLU to recommend sanctions.
"We will propose remedies that will help move the process even quicker than it's been moving now," said Gelernt.
Among other things the ACLU wants reunited families to have a week to decide their next move: fight for asylum, the parents agree to be deported but leave their children, or the whole family agrees to leave. Most are from Central America, fleeing gang violence and other turmoil.
Gelernt said many parents had been persuaded to sign documents renouncing custody and agreeing to leave on their own, in the mistaken belief it was the quickest way to come back later and recover their children.
Slow pace
The deadline was seen as turning a page on the scandal, but the mess is barely beginning for many families that now face life-altering decisions.
Lawyer Efren Olivares of the Texas Civil Rights Project, which represents some parents, said the treatment of migrant families had been marked by "chaos and cruelty."
The separations triggered outrage in the US and abroad, especially after the release of audio of small children in shelters crying for their parents.
The pressure led to the Republican president demanding an end to the separations six weeks later. Sabraw then ordered the reunifications, setting Thursday as the deadline.
But the pace has been slow; children and parents are being housed in different parts of the country, while many adults have been deported.
'Nobody chooses to be separated'
Government data indicates that the parent or parents of more than 430 children may already have been deported, some of them voluntarily - enormously complicating any possible reunion.
Last month Judge Sabraw ordered the government to return children under the age of five to their parents by July 10 and those between five and 17 by July 26.
The government missed the first deadline. It deemed 45 children ineligible for return because their parents were not fit or able to take them.
As of Tuesday - before the latest figures were announced - the US Department of Health and Human Services had in its custody 11,500 children classified as unaccompanied alien children, mainly minors who entered without an adult.
But the number also includes children who crossed over with parents, were separated from them and then reclassified as unaccompanied alien children.
The American Immigration Lawyers Association (AILA) submitted court documents containing testimony from parents who say they were coerced into signing off on their deportations.
"In nearly all of the cases we've seen, government officials used threats, false promises, misinformation and other coercive tactics," the group's president Anastasia Tonello said.
