SAN DIEGO — The Trump administration wants up to two years to find potentially thousands of children who were separated from their parents at the border before a judge halted the practice last year.

The Justice Department said in a court filing late Friday in San Diego that it will take at least a year to review the cases of 47,000 unaccompanied children taken in custody between July 1, 2017 and June 25, 2018.

The administration would begin by sifting through names for signs of likely separation — for example, children under 5.

The administration would provide information on separated families on a rolling basis to the American Civil Liberties Union, which sued to reunite families.

The ACLU says it strongly opposes a plan that could take two years.

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