EL PASO, Texas (AP) — The Latest on separation of immigrant children from their parents (all times local):
11:50 a.m.
U.S. Attorney General Jeff Sessions defended Trump administration immigration policies during a speech at a conference in Nevada while hundreds of protesters rallied outside.
Sessions told a convention sponsored by the National Association of School Resource Officers in Reno on Monday that the controversy over immigration is a "difficult and frustrating situation" that requires Congress to pass new legislation.
He says many children detained at the southern border were brought there by violent gang members, and that "children have indeed borne much of the burden of our broken immigration system."
Sessions says the compassionate thing to do is protect children from violence and drugs, put criminals in jail and secure borders. He calls the alternative, open borders, "both radical and dangerous."
No arrests were immediately reported outside, where demonstrators with signs, drums and a mariachi band waged a peaceful protest.
Some sat in a busy roadway for while police diverted traffic around the casino-hotel where Sessions was speaking.
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11:25 a.m.
U.S. defense officials say the Trump administration has chosen two military bases in Texas to house detained migrants.
The officials identified the bases as Fort Bliss and Goodfellow Air Force Base and spoke on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to speak on the record about a pending announcement.
Defense Secretary Jim Mattis had said on Sunday that two bases had been selected but he would not identify them.
One official said unaccompanied children detained after crossing the U.S. border would be sheltered at one of the bases and the other base would house families of migrant detainees.
Under the arrangement, the Defense Department would provide the land but the operations would be run by other agencies.
— Lolita C. Baldor and Robert Burns.
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11:05 a.m.
A Republican congressman says unaccompanied migrant children housed at a Catholic Charities facility in South Florida are being treated "exceptionally well" and are "happy."
U.S. Rep. Carlos Curbelo toured Catholic Charities Boystown south of Miami Monday morning.
He says some children were in classrooms and others were on a field trip to an aquarium.
Curbelo says the "children were smiling, they were happy."
Curbelo says he opposed President Donald Trump's policy of separating migrant children from family members detained at the U.S.-Mexico border. But he says the facility is doing a good job caring for 22 children.
Trump signed an executive order last week ending the policy, but many children remain separated.
Curbelo says he will work to find a permanent workable immigration policy.
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11 a.m.
More than a dozen protesters are blocking a busy road in downtown Reno, Nevada, near where U.S. Attorney General Jeff Sessions is appearing to speak at a school safety conference.
The Monday morning demonstration in a Virginia Street crosswalk includes several people holding a banner saying "No Human is Illegal" to call attention to Trump administration immigration policy and the separation of children and families at the U.S. border.
Reno police on bicycles have blocked traffic around the protesters near a downtown casino-hotel. Some demonstrators have promised to engage in peaceful civil disobedience and invite arrest.
Nearly two dozen Nevada groups in a progressive alliance tried last week to persuade the national school law enforcement group hosting the conference to withdraw Sessions' invitation.
Mo Canady, executive director of the Alabama-based National Association of School Resource Officers, says that as the nation's top law enforcement officer, Sessions has important information to share.
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10:45 a.m.
A team of federal law enforcement officers entered the Immigration and Customs Enforcement building in Portland, Oregon, to secure government property as protesters continued a demonstration against Trump administration immigration policies.
Federal Protective Service spokesman Rob Sperling says officers entered the building during the early hours Monday. Protesters did not try to stop them.
Sperling says it's a precautionary move, and there's no indication that activists camped outside the facility have entered it.
Portland's ICE headquarters has been the site of a round-the-clock protest since June 17. The occupation grew in size early last week and the building has been closed since Wednesday.
Sperling says there's no time frame for when employees will return.
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More than 200 protesters opposed to President Donald Trump's immigration policies blocked a busy road Monday near where Attorney General Jeff Sessions was scheduled to speak at a school-safety conference.
The coalition of civil rights, religious and union activists staged the demonstration outside a hotel-casino in downtown Reno. Several people held a banner saying "No human is illegal" to call attention to the separation of children and families at the U.S.-Mexico border.
The protesters chanted, "Jeff Sessions, you can't hide. Reno sees your ugly side!" Several carried signs that read "Children are not political" and "Impeach the mad king."
At least a half-dozen people wearing red arm bands said they intended to get arrested.
The Rev. Karen Foster of the Unitarian Universalist Fellowship said American children are taught to pledge allegiance to the flag "with liberty and justice for all." She said "there is no justice for thousands of children locked in cages" at the border.
Nearly two dozen Nevada groups tried unsuccessfully last week to persuade the national school law enforcement group hosting the conference to withdraw its invitation to Sessions.
Meanwhile, a congressman said he was turned away from trying to meet with detainees from the southern border crisis because of a chicken pox outbreak at a federal prison in Tacoma, Washington.
Democratic Rep. Derek Kilmer went to the Northwest Detention Center on Saturday after hearing that a number of migrants who were separated from their children had been transferred there from another federal prison in the area.
Kilmer told the Tacoma News Tribune that he had tours scheduled at both facilities, but they were canceled due to protest-related safety concerns.
When the congressman tried to visit three detainees during regularly scheduled visiting hours on Saturday, he was told that they were all quarantined due to chicken pox exposure.
On Sunday, more than 30 immigrant parents separated from their children after crossing the U.S.-Mexico border were freed into the care of a Texas charitable organization, the group said, but the parents don't know where their kids are or when they might see them again.
The release was believed to be the first, large one of its kind since Trump signed an executive order that preserved a "zero-tolerance" policy for entering the country illegally but ended the practice of separating immigrant parents and children.
Ruben Garcia, director of Annunciation House in El Paso, said the group includes mothers and fathers from Mexico, Guatemala and Honduras who came to his group after authorities withdrew criminal charges for illegal entry.
Garcia would not provide names or personal details of the parents, and reporters could not speak with them. Department of Homeland Security officials said they could not check the veracity of the claims without more specific identifying information.
Homeland Security officials have said authorities know the location of all children in custody and were working to reunite them. The agency called the reunification process "well-coordinated."
A fact sheet issued by the agency over the weekend also said parents must request that their child be deported with them. In the past, the sheet said, many parents elected to be deported without their children. That may be a reflection of violence or persecution they face in their home countries.
The exact process to reunite families has been unclear because migrants are first stopped by Customs and Border Patrol, with children taken into custody by the Department of Health and Human Services and adults detained through Immigration and Customs Enforcement, which is under the Department of Homeland Security. Children have been sent to far-flung shelters around the country, raising alarm that parents might never know where their children can be found.
Officials have said as many as 2,300 children had been separated from the time the policy began until June 9. At least 2,053 minors who were separated at the border were being cared for in HHS-funded facilities, the fact sheet said.
The chairman of the Senate Homeland Security Committee hedged Sunday when pressed on whether he was confident the Trump administration knows where all the children are and will be able to reunite them with their parents.
"That is what they're claiming," Sen. Ron Johnson, a Wisconsin Republican, said on CNN's "State of the Union."
As part of the effort, ICE officials have posted notices in all its facilities advising detained parents who are trying to find or communicate with their children to call a hotline.
A parent or guardian trying to determine if a child is in the custody of HHS should contact the Office of Refugee Resettlement National Call Center at 1-800-203-7001, or via email at information@ORRNCC.com. Information will be collected and sent to an HHS-funded facility where a minor is located.
But it's unclear whether detained parents have access to computers to send an email, or how their phone systems work to call out. Attorneys at the border have said they have been frantically trying to locate information about the children on behalf of their clients.
The administration's "zero-tolerance policy" of criminally prosecuting anyone caught illegally crossing the border remains in effect, officials have said, despite confusion on the ground on how to carry out Trump's order.
Justice Department officials asked a federal judge to amend a class-action settlement that governs how children are treated in immigration custody. Right now, children can only be detained with their families for 20 days. Trump officials are seeking to detain them together indefinitely as their cases progress. Advocates say family detention does not solve the problem.
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