ICE

Swift deportation leaves a family separated, with 8-and 14-year-old boys still in Arizona, and a community working to connect them.

COVID-19 has complicated the process of reuniting immigrant families with their children when a parent with an ongoing child welfare case is either in ICE custody in the U.S. or has been deported.

Last week we gave you the story of two brothers – Suamhirs and Yordi – separated by unbelievable violence in their home country of Honduras and immigration policies in the U.S.

Now that the horrific family separation policy at the border appears to be at an end, the Trump administration will need to figure out a plan for how to handle the asylum-seeking families it detains going forward.

Laurie Melrood is a family services consultant to southern Arizona immigrant support organizations, including the Florence Immigrant and Refugee Rights Project. She co-edited a family unity manual for immigrant parents detained by Immigrations and Customs Enforcement (ICE), and co-wrote the procedures for immigrant parents detained in ICE facilities with children in Arizona state custody.

The immigration policy changes made thus far by the Trump Administration may, in some states, fuel a surge in the number of children who enter foster care, according to a new report from the Immigrant Legal Resource Center (ILRC).

Last Friday, the Trump administration rolled out a new “surge initiative” that authorized Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) officials to arrest parents and other relatives who hire smugglers to bring their children into the U.S.

About two and a half years ago, 29-year-old Judith* got a phone call from Maria,* her 9-year-old half-sister in México, to inform her that their mom had just died. Maria’s father had passed away the year before.

For nearly two years after he arrived in the United States from Guatemala as an unaccompanied minor, Carlos* never saw an immigration attorney, including during an eight-month stint at a border detention center.