VOA慢速英语2020 628名失散移民儿童的父母仍下落不明（在线收听）

A court-appointed committee has not yet found the parents of 628 children separated at the United States-Mexico border since 2017.

一个由法院指定的委员会仍未找到2017年在美墨边境走散的628名儿童的父母。

They were separated under a "zero tolerance" policy on illegal border crossings. The policy resulted in thousands of separations when parents were charged as criminals.

迫于非法越境“零容忍”的政策，他们不得不分开。这一政策导致数千名移民父母被控有罪，与子女分离。

The parents of 333 children are believed to be in the U.S., while those of the other 295 are believed to be outside the country.

据信，其中333名儿童的父母滞留美国，而剩下的295名儿童的父母被驱逐出境。

That does not mean the parents and children are still separated. It only means that the committee has been unable to find the parents. The committee has found other family members for 168 of the 628 children whose parents have not been found.

这并不意味着父母和孩子仍然处于失散状态——只是说委员会找不到这些孩子的父母。委员会为628名与父母失散的儿童中的168人找到了其他家人。

On November 25, the Trump administration gave the committee phone numbers and other information to assist the search.

11月25日，特朗普政府为该委员会提供了电话号码和其他信息以协助寻亲。

Lee Gelernt is a lawyer with the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) which represents the parents. He said he had been asking the administration for any additional information for the last year.

李·盖勒恩特（Lee Gelernt）是美国公民自由联盟(ACLU)代表父母一方的律师。他表示，去年他一直在向政府要求披露更多详细信息。

"We just received this new information the day before (the American holiday of) Thanksgiving and only because the global outcry over the fact that these parents had not been found," he told the Associated Press.

他告诉美联社：“感恩节（美国节日）的前一天才收到这一新消息。理由仅仅是因为找不到这些父母引发了全球的强烈抗议。”

The search committee said it is too early to know how useful the additional phone numbers will be in finding more parents.

搜寻委员会表示，这些电话号码对寻找更多失散父母来说有多大用处还不好说。

In June 2018, U.S. District Judge Dana Sabraw in San Diego ordered an end to the "zero-tolerance" policy. He ordered the children and parents reunited within 30 days. At that time, more than 2,700 children were separated from their parents.

2018年6月，美国圣地亚哥地区法官达纳·萨布鲁（Dana Sabraw）下令结束“零容忍”政策。他下令让失散的家庭在30天内团聚。当时与父母失散的儿童有2700多名。

The 628 children whose parents have not been found were separated before the judge's order, going back to July 1, 2017. The children were all released by the government before the June 2018 order and their families are difficult to find because the government kept poor records. They include hundreds of children separated during a test of the policy in El Paso, Texas, from July to November 2017, that was not known to the public at the time.

这628名儿童在法官下达命令前就已经与父母失散。他们与父母失散的日期可追溯到2017年7月1日。这些儿童早在2018年6月法官下达命令前就被政府释放，但由于政府没有完整保存记录，他们很难寻亲。这些儿童中还包括2017年7月至11月在得克萨斯州埃尔帕索政策试行期间被迫失散的数百名儿童，而当时公众对此并不知情。

During the final weeks of his campaign, President-elect Joe Biden promised he would create a special committee to find the parents.

在竞选的最后几周，当选总统乔·拜登承诺将成立一个特别委员会来寻找这些孩子的父母。

The ACLU wants Biden to permit separated families to return to the United States and to receive "some kind of legal status." Gelernt added, "We think that's only fair given what they've been put through."

美国公民自由联盟希望拜登允许失散家庭重返美国并获得“某种合法地位”，盖勒特补充说，“考虑到他们的悲惨遭遇，只有给予他们合法地位才算公平。”

Volunteers have searched for parents by phone and by going house-to-house in Central America. The effort was stopped by the coronavirus health crisis. The committee has also mailed letters to 1,600 possible families and established free telephone numbers in the U.S., Mexico, Guatemala, Honduras and El Salvador for them to call.

志愿者通过电话和在中美洲挨家挨户走访的方式为孩子们寻亲。由于新冠肺炎疫情，寻亲工作也被迫结束。该委员会还向1600户可能的家庭寄送信件，并在美国、墨西哥、危地马拉、洪都拉斯和萨尔瓦多设立了免费电话供他们咨询。

Words in This Story

zero tolerance – n. a policy of giving the most severe punishment possible to every person who commits a crime or breaks a rule

global – adj. worldwide

outcry – n. an expression of strong disapproval by many people

special – adj. different from what is normal or usual