US officials have asked for more time to reunite migrant families separated at the Mexican border because some parents have already been deported.
The government had been given a deadline by a Californian judge to produce a list of children under the age of five separated from their families at the border.
But in a two-hour hearing on Friday, a government attorney said that 19 parents of children under the age of five held in custody had left the US.
The Justice Department has a deadline to release the children by July 10 but argued it needs more time to perform the necessary identity checks.
More than 2,300 children, around 100 of them under five, were separated from their families as a consequence of the Trump administration’s "zero tolerance" policy that saw their parents prosecuted for illegally crossing the border, even if they did so to seek asylum.
AFP
Several hundred have already been reunited with their parents after the controversial policy was revoked, but officials say the process is time-consuming.
This week the government revealed it is using DNA tests to determine parentage and has ordered tests on around 3,000 children.
The Department of Health and Human Services defended the decision from critics, saying "it is critical to ensure that children are returned to their parents, not to potential traffickers".
During the court hearing it also emerged that 16 children are yet to be matched to their parents; 19 parents have already been released into the US; 46 parents are being held in custody by Immigration and Customs Enforcement and two parents have been judged unfit for release.
The judge, Dana Sabraw, has yet to rule on the extension but has ordered the government to provide a full list of those under five held in custody by Saturday afternoon.