A federal judge in San Diego, California ruled late Tuesday that the more than 2,000 migrant children separated from their parents under the Trump administration’s “zero tolerance” policy must be reunited with their families within 30 days—and children under age 5 must be returned to parents within two weeks.

“This ruling is an enormous victory for parents and children who thought they may never see each other again,” declared Lee Gelernt, deputy director of the ACLU’s Immigrants’ Rights Project, which fought for the families in court. “Tears will be flowing in detention centers across the country when the families learn they will be reunited.”

“The facts set forth before the court portray reactive governance—responses to address a chaotic circumstance of the government’s own making. They belie measured and ordered governance, which is central to the concept of due process enshrined in our constitution,” wrote (pdf) U.S. District Judge Dana Sabraw. “This is particularly so in the treatment of migrants, many of whom are asylum seekers and small children.”

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The Trump administration’s family separation policy was implemented without any standards for adequately tracking detained children taken from their parents, so as Sabraw noted, the “startling” and “unfortunate reality is that under the present system migrant children are not accounted for with the same efficiency and accuracy as property.”

Karen Tumlin, director of legal strategy for the National Immigration Law Center, drew attention to the court’s pointed criticism of federal officials treating children with less care than a detainee’s personal effects:

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