They don't believe there'll be a price to pay for admitting inhumane treatment of immigrants

And, sadly, they may be right.

Thousands more immigrant children were separated from their parents under the Trump administration than previously reported and whether they have been reunified is unknown, according to a report released Thursday by the inspector general for the Department of Health and Human Services.

The report found a spike in immigrant family separations beginning in the summer of 2017, a year prior to the "zero tolerance" policy that prosecuted immigrant parents who crossed the border illegally while holding their children separately in HHS custody. The families separated under zero tolerance were represented in a class action lawsuit, where a federal judge ordered that the government reunify them.

However, the government had no such order to reunify children separated prior to "zero tolerance."

[...]

"We don’t have any information on those children who were released prior to the court order," an official from the HHS Office of Inspector General told reporters on a call Thursday.

[...]

Prior to "zero tolerance," children were separated from parents if they had a criminal history, but it is not known whether the criminality was violent, the HHS inspector general officials said. The vast majority of immigrants prosecuted at the border are arrested on charges stemming from illegal re-entry, not violent crimes, according to data compiled by Syracuse University.

[...]

The officials said they based their estimate of "thousands" of separated children on interviews with HHS staff, but they were not able to provide a more specific number.

  NBC

Inexcusable not to keep records. Unconsionable to separte the children from their parents.