司法部要求一名联邦法官批准一名心理学家对移民父母进行新一轮的测试，这些移民父母的孩子被被特朗普政府与他们分开。
上周提交的政府请求，是亚利桑那州联邦法院正在进行的诉讼的一部分代表五位在时任总统唐纳德·特朗普(Donald Trump)的“零容忍”政策下与孩子分离的母亲，该政策授权起诉所有非法越境行为。这些母亲现在正在向美国政府寻求赔偿，因为她们说自己的孩子被带走后遭受了情感和精神上的伤害。
代表这些家庭的律师说，这些妇女已经接受了他们提供的专家的心理评估。但司法部在其法庭文件中表示，他们希望自己的专家里卡多·温克尔博士做出评估。
“原告打算通过专家证词来支持他们的伤害索赔，并且每个人都接受了他们自己的专家的多次精神健康评估。司法部的文件指出:“由对方的专家对声称受到严重精神伤害的原告进行检查是标准做法。”。
美国总统乔·拜登(Joe Biden)谴责并反对特朗普的家庭分离政策，特朗普最初在强烈反对下暂停了这项政策，直到2018年6月一名法官结束了该计划。
拜登此前表示，他支持对在边境分离的家庭进行补偿。
“事实上，如果因为上届政府的蛮横行为，你越过边境，不管是合法还是非法，你失去了你的孩子——你失去了你的孩子——它就没了。无论在什么情况下，你都应该得到补偿，”拜登在11月表示。“那会是什么，我不知道。我不知道。”
然而，大约在同一时间，一些移民家庭和联邦政府之间的和解谈判在拜登驳回报告后不久就破裂了据知情人士透露，他的政府正在考虑向这些家庭支付高达45万美元的赔偿金。
“这是不可能的，”拜登在11月谈到这个数额时说。
政府律师在法庭文件中表示，他们希望额外的检查将“对每个成年原告目前的心理状况和预后，以及每个成年原告陈述的原因有所发现，所有这些都是这场诉讼的核心问题，也是原告自己打算引入专家证词的问题。”
美国公民自由联盟(American Civil Liberties Union)律师李·格莱特说，他担心让他们接受更多评估可能会让他们再次受到创伤。他正在与其他一些在特朗普执政期间被分离的移民家庭合作。(司法部没有回应对其最新申请的置评请求。)
“美国儿科学会称之为虐待儿童。重温这些事件引发了所有的创伤，政府知道这些家庭遭受了严重的创伤，”Gelernt告诉ABC新闻。Gelernt是几起处理家庭分离案件的首席律师，包括L v. ICE女士，该案导致法院命令特朗普政府停止这种做法，让家庭团聚。
“这届政府不应该雇用医生来试图淡化特朗普政府残酷政策下离散家庭所遭受的伤害，”格勒恩特在一份声明中说，“特别是考虑到拜登总统称这些政策是犯罪，是国家的道德污点。”
司法部在上周提交的文件中提议，其专家温克尔博士将在“所有相关方同意的”时间和地点进行额外的检查，包括长达四小时的临床面试和四小时的测试。父母将接受个性和情感功能测试以及创伤特异性检查。
Lee Gelernt, an attorney for the American Civil Liberties Union, speaks after a hearing in San Diego, July 16, 2018.
Gregory Bull/AP，文件
美国公民自由联盟一直在与拜登政府的家庭团聚特别工作组合作，以解决特朗普分居政策的影响，但美国公民自由联盟表示，他们仍在寻找151个没有孩子的家庭。
Gelernt说，很明显，团聚的家庭继续受到他们经历的创伤，并补充说，他的一些客户在谈到他们经历的事情时开始哭泣。
“有一种难以置信的负罪感——他们能阻止这种分离吗?他们当然不能，但令人心碎的是看到他们的孩子责怪他们没有做更多的事情来阻止分离，”Gelernt说。“在某些情况下，孩子会说，‘爸爸，你为什么不阻止他们?“难道你不够爱我吗，”"
Migrant families suing after being separated under Trump should undergo more evaluation: Justice Department
The Justice Department is asking a federal judge to approve a psychologist for a new round of exams on migrant parents whose children wereseparated from them by the Trump administration.
The government's request, filed last week,is part of an ongoing lawsuit in Arizona federal courton behalf of five mothers who were separated from their kids under then-President Donald Trump's "zero-tolerance" policy which mandated prosecutions for all illegal border crossings. The mothers are now seeking compensation from the U.S. government for the emotional and mental damages they say they endured after their children were taken from them.
A lawyer representing the families said the women have already undergone psychological evaluations by experts they provided. But the Justice Department, in its court filing, said they would like their own expert, Dr. Ricardo Winkel, to make an assessment.
"Plaintiffs intend to support their claims of injury through expert testimony and have each submitted to multiple mental health evaluations by their own expert. It is standard practice for plaintiffs alleging severe emotional injury to be examined by the opposing party's expert," the Justice Department's filing states.
President Joe Biden condemned and campaigned against Trump's family separation policy, which Trump initially paused under intense backlash before a judge put an end to the program in June 2018.
Biden previously said he was in favor of compensating families separated at the border.
"If, in fact, because of the outrageous behavior of the last administration, you coming across the border, whether it was legally or illegally, and you lost your child -- you lost your child -- it's gone. You deserve compensation no matter what the circumstance," Biden said in November. "What that will be, I have no idea. I have no idea."
Around the same time, however, settlement discussions between some of the migrant families and the federal governmentbroke down shortly after Biden dismissed reportsthat his administration was considering payments of up to $450,000 for families, according to sources familiar with the situation.
"That's not going to happen," Biden said in November of that amount.
Government lawyers said in court filings that they hope the additional exams will "develop findings on each Adult Plaintiff's current psychological condition and prognosis, as well as on the cause or causes of each Adult Plaintiff's presentation, all of which are central issues in this litigation and matters on which Plaintiffs themselves intend to introduce expert testimony."
American Civil Liberties Union attorney Lee Gelernt -- who is working with some other migrant families who were separated under Trump -- said he fears that subjecting them to more evaluations could be re-traumatizing. (The Justice Department did not respond to a request for comment on its latest filing.)
"The American Academy of Pediatrics called it child abuse. Reliving the events is triggering all that trauma, and the government knows that these families suffered severe trauma," Gelernt told ABC News. Gelernt is the lead counsel in several cases dealing with family separation, including Ms. L v. ICE which led to a court ordering the Trump administration to halt the practice and reunite families.
"This administration should not be hiring doctors to try to downplay the harm suffered by separated families under the Trump administration's cruel policies," Gelernt contended in a statement, "especially given that President Biden called those policies criminal and a moral stain on the nation."
The Justice Department proposed in its filing last week that its expert, Dr. Winkel, would conduct the additional examinations at a time and place "that is agreeable to all interested parties" and would consist of up to four hours for a clinical interview and four hours of testing. Parents would undergo personality and emotional functioning tests as well as trauma-specific exams.
The ACLU has been working with the Biden administration's Family Reunification Task Force to address the fallout from Trump's separation policy, but the ACLU says they're still searching for 151 families who are without their children.
Gelernt said it was clear that the reunited families continue to be traumatized by their experience, adding that some of his clients start crying when they talk about what they went through.
"There is such unbelievable guilt feeling like -- could they have stopped the separation? Of course they couldn't, but [what's] heartbreaking is to see their little children blame them for not doing more to stop the separation," Gelernt said. "In some cases, a child will say, 'Daddy, why didn't you stop them? Didn't you love me enough?'"
