The 1-year-old boy in a green button-up shirt drank milk from a bottle, played with a small purple ball that lit up when it hit the ground and occasionally asked for "agua."

Then it was the child's turn for his court appearance before a Phoenix immigration judge, who could hardly contain his unease with the situation during the portion of the hearing where he asks immigrant defendants whether they understand the proceedings.

"I'm embarrassed to ask it, because I don't know who you would explain it to, unless you think that a 1-year-old could learn immigration law," Judge John W. Richardson told the lawyer representing the 1-year-old boy.

The boy is one of hundreds of children who need to be reunited with their parents after being separated at the border, many of them split from mothers and fathers as a result of the Trump administration's "zero-tolerance policy."

Shortly after President Donald Trump reversed his administration’s policy on June 20, a judge ordered the administration to reunite children under five with their parents by July 10 and all others by July 26.

The ACLU said late Sunday the administration provided it with a list of 102 children under five years old and that "appears likely that less than half will be reunited" by Tuesday's deadline.

The Justice Department asked U.S. District Judge Dana Sabraw for more time last week but the judge on Friday did not grant a blanket extension, saying only that he would consider certain exceptions.

Health and Human Services Secretary Alex Azar said Thursday there were "under 3,000" children separated from their parents. Previously, he said 2,047.

"It's extremely disappointing that the Trump administration looks like it will fail to reunite even half the children under five with their parent," said ACLU attorney Lee Gelernt. "These kids have already suffered so much because of this policy, and every extra day apart just adds to that pain."

In Phoenix on Friday, the one-year-old Honduran boy named Johan waited over an hour to see the judge. His attorney told Richardson that the boy's father had brought him to the U.S. but that they had been separated, although it's unclear when. He said the father, who was now in Honduras, was removed from the country under false pretenses that he would be able to leave with his son.

For a while, the child wore dress shoes, but later he was in just socks as he waited to see the judge. He was silent and calm for most of the hearing, though he cried hysterically afterward for the few seconds that a worker handed him to another person while she gathered his diaper bag. He is in the custody of the U.S. Health and Human Services Department in Arizona.

Critics have also seized on the nation's immigration court system that requires children — some still in diapers — to have appearances before judges and go through deportation proceedings while separated from their parents. Such children don't have a right to a court-appointed attorney, and 90 percent of kids without a lawyer are returned to their home countries, according to Kids in Need of Defense, a group that provides legal representation.

Associated Press contributed to this report.