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Maryland AG to sue Trump administration for border 'hostage-taking'

"Taking children from those parents and moving them across the country is unconstitutional. It's also inhumane, it's unspeakable and unworthy of the United States of America," Frosh said.

WASHINGTON – He called President Trump’s executive order on immigration “a piece of Swiss cheese” and said the children now gripping the consciousness of the nation are being held hostage by a shameful White House.

In a salvo fired nearly 2,000 miles away from the Mexican border, Maryland Attorney General Brian E. Frosh said he will join a multi-state lawsuit against the Trump administration Thursday, in an effort to reunite more than 2,300 children separated from their families.

“Taking children from those parents and moving them across the country is unconstitutional,” Frosh said in an interview. “It’s also inhumane, it’s unspeakable and unworthy of the United States of America.”

READ MORE: 'Tender-age' children from border held at Virginia home for troubled kids

In a legal showdown evocative of the fight against the Trump administration’s travel ban, Maryland will now join 10 other states and the District of Columbia in a lawsuit to end the deeply divisive immigration policy.

The case is being argued by Washington state’s solicitor general and assistant attorney general. Washington Attorney General Bob Ferguson said the lawsuit will be filed in the U.S. District Court for the Western District of Washington.

“This is a rogue, cruel, and unconstitutional policy,” Ferguson said. “We’re going to put a stop to it.”

The lawsuit seeks to compel federal authorities to reunite all children separated before Wednesday’s executive order. Immigration officials sent mixed signals Thursday concerning whether any substantial effort would be made to return children now removed from their families.

An undisclosed number of migrant children are now in Maryland, sent to the state without any details disclosed by the federal government.

“We just heard that there were children in Maryland two days ago” Frosh said, showing an expression of bewilderment. “The idea that we are perpetrating these conditions and these hardships on children in Maryland just sets my hair on fire.”

The state attorney general said he heard about the children now in Maryland from employees within the state’s shelters. The workers are largely bound to non-disclosure agreements or privacy rules set in contracts with the federal government.

Major details concerning the newly-arrived border children have now been verified by state authorities, with some children simply too young to communicate who their parents are.

“One we understand is 18 months old,” Frosh said. “Others are young enough so that they can’t identify themselves. Can’t identify their parents. Don’t know where they came from, and don’t know why they’re here.”

READ MORE: 'No comment' from Va. detention center after alleged abuse claims

The Trump administration contends all adults crossing the southern border illegally should be subject to criminal prosecution – an aggressive enforcement of a misdemeanor crime once set aside for less punitive civil immigration proceedings.

But Thursday’s lawsuit contends federal authorities violated immigrants’ rights to due process, with families separated absent specific findings that parents posed risks to their children.

The suit also contends migrants rights to seek asylum are being denied – an allegation corroborated by reports of migrants turned away at overwhelmed legal ports of entry.

“You’re also not crossing the border illegally if you’re coming to seek asylum,” Frosh said. “And they are making no determination about that.”

A federal judge could rule on the merits of the suit within days, as the potential for a possible injunction remains unclear.

Frosh said he hopes the legal action will lead to more clarity in the near future, and provide certainty over whether family separations are ended for good.

“The executive order is a piece of Swiss cheese,” Frosh said. “That’s being polite. There is no guarantee that the policy of separating children from their parents won’t continue, and there is nothing in it whatsoever that talks about reuniting children who have already been taken from their parents.”

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