More than 8,000 migrants have made their way to the Catholic Charities Respite Center in McAllen in October so far.

Of those, more than 2,000 migrants have family with them.

Those families were not separated after crossing the border like some have been in the past, and the American Civil Liberties Union hopes to keep it that way.

On Monday, the Biden Administration struck a deal with the ACLU to keep migrant families together at all times — unless there's an extreme situation like someone committed a felony.

READ MORE: Settlement over Trump family separations at the border seeks to limit future separations for 8 years

“At the end of the day, you are just dealing with innocent children that just want to be with their parents,” Harlingen-based immigration attorney Susana Silva said.

If approved, the settlement would call for temporary deportation protection for families who were separated at the border in the past, and quicker access to work permits.

“Some parents are hiding,” Silva said. “Other parents, even though they have tried to make contact with them in the past they moved, changed phone numbers — that's why we have hundreds of children still separated.”

According to the Department of Homeland Security, almost a thousand children are waiting to be reunited with their parents after crossing the border between 2017 and 2021. 

The settlement will provide access to lawyers to help migrants apply for asylum. It would also waive the one-year timeline people have to wait to apply.

Although it's not a solution, Silva says it’s a step in the right direction. 

The settlement still needs to be approved by a federal judge.

Watch the video above for the full story.