Advocate groups have also called for accountability and transparency to fully account for the "zero tolerance" policy and its ramifications, as well as factoring in the input of parents who were separated from their children.
Biden has pledged to sign an executive order to form a task force that will focus on reuniting separated families. While the creation of a task force has been welcomed, immigrant advocate groups caution that it shouldn't supplant the efforts of the last two years.
"We need to make sure we're using all our resources to support those efforts, rather than thinking the task force can itself serve as search and rescue," Jawetz said, adding that the task force could play a useful role in providing a "single focus for inter-agency efforts that will have White House involvement."
"Task force is great, but we don't want it to be a stall tactic or take too long," Caron echoed. "We need a focal point in the government to be able to have the conversations with."
Speaking virtually at an American Business Immigration Coalition summit this month, Mayorkas nodded to the restrictionist policies of the Trump administration, saying that "we must stop vilifying these communities," and he cited the family separation policy.
"There is no more powerful and heartbreaking example of that inhumanity than the separation of children from their parents," he said.
