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A House committee voted Tuesday to subpoena Trump administration officials over family separations at the southern border, the first issued in the new Congress as Democrats have promised to hold the administration aggressively to count. The decision by the Oversight Committee will compel the heads of Justice, Homeland Security and Health and Human Services to deliver documents to lawmakers. The committee’s chairman, Democratic Rep. Elijah Cummings of Maryland, has pledged to press the administration for documents and testimony on a wide swath of issues, but family separation was among his first priorities. (Long, 2/26)

Democrats on the committee said they have requested information for seven months from the agencies, including a request earlier this month. While the agencies have sent some documents, the Democrats said, the administration hasn’t fulfilled the requests of the committee, which is asking for specific information about each child separated from a parent or guardian at the border. “I did not make this decision lightly,” said committee Chairman Elijah Cummings (D., Md.) at Tuesday’s meeting.  “When our own government rips vulnerable children, toddlers, and even infants from the arms of their mothers and fathers with no plan to reunite them, that is government-sponsored child abuse.” (Andrews and Radnofsky, 2/26)

Rep. Jim Jordan (Ohio), the committee’s top Republican, said he didn’t think subpoenas should be necessary, because the agencies are cooperating. Jordan said the committee has been given hundreds of pages of documents in response to previous requests, and the administration should be granted more time. HHS spokeswoman Caitlin Oakley said the agency "has communicated regularly and in good faith" with Oversight Committee members, and has provided 792 pages of documents related to the Committee’s request. Oakley said HHS has also offered committee staff a review of the Office of Refugee Resettlement portal, which is used to help track the children in HHS custody. (Weixel, 2/26)

The Trump policy of prosecuting all adults crossing the border led to the practice of separating families and caring for the children in licensed facilities while trying to place them with a relative, because a previous court settlement had restricted the detention of children. The Department of Homeland Security struggled to track families and their children after the policy was put in place last spring — and did not create a comprehensive family reunification policy until a federal judge intervened. Mr. Trump eventually relented on the family separations, and a federal judge in California halted them in June. But in January, the inspector general of the Department of Health and Human Services reported that thousands more families might have been separated than previously reported. (Thrush, 2/26)