Sometimes there is an event, initiative, court decision that is monumental in its effect but almost too much to put into words. What is going on with immigrant families in this country right now fits this definition. Even if the practice of separating immigrant parents from their children has stopped—and it is not clear that it has, at least not entirely—there apparently remain more than two thousand children who have been taken from their parents and whose return appears difficult to accomplish. Even a court order for their return appears to be largely ineffectual.

This is a problem entirely of the administration’s making. Nothing compelled this forced separation of parents and children and it does not appear that it happened in this way in the past. So the presidential decree that it stop is hardly either a heroic or a sufficient act. It is a problem created by the people who now declare that it should stop. And certainly, it should stop. And every child taken away must be returned immediately. This is no time for procedural delay. The children must be returned right now, with no delay.