From the New York Times, I'm Michael Barbaro. This is The Daily.

Today.

The policy began in secret. The government denied there even was a policy.

And when it finally acknowledged what was happening, chaos ensued.

Only now, the full picture of what happened and why has started to become clear in the US government's separation of migrant parents and their children.

It's Tuesday, August 21st.

I don't think I ever saw this coming. I mean, it's more like I never thought they would actually do it.

So as a result, I never even imagined what the reaction to it might look like, you know, what the country might think of it, because it just seemed so unlikely.

There's no Western!

Western! Western!

Today is the deadline date by which the government is supposed to have reunited children with their families.

Instead, what we know is true is that hundreds of family members have not yet been reunited.

Where is your child?

The same many that don't get here and fix nothing but nothing must be known.

There's no way that the government can reunify every single child by the deadline today.

And that's because they never had a plan to put these families back together in the first place.

Nobody chooses to be separated. Unlike what this administration is saying.

And I can guarantee you the facts are just the opposite.

The likelihood of most of these 463 deport days ever seeing their kids again is virtually non-existent.

When?

That's a question I get from parents. When are the parents going to see the children? When? When? And that's what we all need to be asking.

When?

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