The Latest: 9 Kansas detainees were separated from parents

WICHITA, Kan. (AP) - The Latest on immigrant detainees in Kansas (all times local):

5 p.m.

Nine of 44 immigrant children placed under the care of a Kansas nonprofit working under contract with the federal government were separated from their parents at the border.

The Kansas Department for Children and Families cited the number of separated children on Monday. DCF says in a news release that a staff member on Friday visited the non-profit called The Villages Inc. at the request of Republican Gov. Jeff Colyer. The inspection looked at group homes operated by the Villages outside of Topeka.

The DCF says that of the 44 children in placement, nine were separated from their parents and the rest were unaccompanied minors.

Colyer says in a statement that it is the state’s “hope and expectation” that the children will be reunited with their families “in the near future.”

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12:45 p.m.

A Democratic lawmaker says an eastern Kansas nonprofit that has a contract with the federal government to care for unaccompanied minors is caring for 44 immigrant youth, nine of them under the age of 12.

House Minority Leader Jim Ward and former U.S. Attorney Barry Grissom are working to reunite the children with their parents.Grissom has assembled a team of 10 lawyers to provide legal services to the children. Grissom says they have been led to believe some of the children were separated from parents in a crackdown on illegal crossings of the U.S-Mexico border, but that is not confirmed.Grissom, Ward, state officials and officials from The Villages, which operates five group homes home on a 400-acre site outside Topeka, are set to meet on the issue Wednesday.