Latest news with #familyseparation
Reuters
22-07-2025
- Politics
- Reuters
An American toddler in foster care, a mom in ICE detention
GREENVILLE, OHIO - For 125 days in her immigration detention cell, Ingrid Mejia replayed in her head the day she was separated from her 3-year-old son. Mejia, a 25-year-old farmworker from Guatemala, had gone to court on February 25 on a charge of driving without a license. She didn't have a lawyer - or child care. So she left Eliazar, a chubby-cheeked child with dark hair and eyes, waiting outside with the person who had given her a ride to court. She thought she would pay a fine and go home, just as she had four months earlier on the same charge. Instead, as this was her fourth such offense, municipal court judge Julie Monnin sentenced her to three days in Ohio's Darke County jail. The brief sentence plunged Mejia into the dragnet of President Donald Trump's aggressive immigration enforcement, landing her in immigration detention for more than four months and stranding her U.S. citizen son in foster care for even longer. Mejia began trying to get her son back on July 3, within hours of her release. She hoped it would happen in days. But at a July 15 custody hearing, child welfare officials said Eliazar had bonded with his foster family during her prolonged detention. They told the hearing a slow transition would be in the child's best interest, Mejia said. 'He's my son. I just want him back now,' Mejia said after the hearing. 'I just want to hug him.' Friends and family say Mejia is a hardworking mother, not a violent criminal, who did not need to be detained, and her son did not deserve to be in foster care. Immigration authorities and those who favor restricting migration say Mejia repeatedly broke the law by driving without a license and by violating immigration rules. Mejia admits to using false paperwork to enter the U.S. and to being in the country illegally. 'I don't think this offense should be minimized," Jessica Vaughan, director of policy studies for the Center for Immigration Studies, a think tank that favors lower levels of immigration, said of the driving without a license charge. Trump was elected on a promise to deport millions of immigrants who are in the United States illegally, and has deported more than 239,000 people so far, according to Department of Homeland Security data. His administration has set arrest quotas for immigration enforcement officials of 3,000 a day - ten times higher than average daily arrests the last year of President Joe Biden's administration. It has also been releasing far fewer people from immigration detention on humanitarian grounds. Just 67 people were paroled in June by Immigration and Customs Enforcement, down from 5,159 in December, Biden's last full month in office, government data show. Since Trump took office, ICE has dramatically increased 'detainer requests' - notices to state and local jails to hold an immigrant for pick-up, sweeping up immigrants like Mejia. They rose to 700 a day on average through early June, from an average of about 400 a day during the same time period last year, according to a Reuters analysis of ICE data collected by UC Berkeley's Deportation Data Project. When Mejia was booked into the county jail on February 25, her fingerprints were automatically shared with ICE. They showed a match for a person who had entered the United States seven years earlier and was in the country illegally. ICE issued a detainer request and on February 28, after Mejia had completed her unlicensed-driving sentence, immigration officers picked her up from jail and drove her 140 miles to a detention center in Tiffin, Ohio, according to jail records. 'She has been arrested multiple times for driving illegally and admitted to law enforcement that she was in the country illegally,' DHS spokeswoman Tricia McLaughlin told Reuters in a statement, in response to questions about Mejia and her child. McLaughlin said deportees are generally given the choice of taking U.S. citizen children with them or leaving them with friends or family in the United States. After Mejia was convicted on February 25, police and child welfare officials tried to contact a friend whom she suggested could look after Eliazar during her three-day sentence. But the woman didn't answer the door to Mark Ater - the police chief in Union City, where Mejia lived - because she was afraid he might be working with ICE. With nobody else immediately available, Eliazar was placed in foster care. The case weighed on Ater, the police chief said. "It broke my heart that this kid was taken away from his mom,' he said. 'Outside of the entire situation, there was still a kid that was going to go into foster care." Monnin, the judge, declined to comment, saying the 'unfortunate consequences of the defendant's actions are out of my control,' adding: 'I pray that a reunification process is developed quickly.' Mejia fled sexual and gang violence in Guatemala, arriving at a port of entry on the U.S.-Mexico border in November 2017, a few weeks shy of her 18th birthday, according to her immigration paperwork. Smugglers told her to travel on her younger sister's documents to ensure she was processed as an unaccompanied minor in the event that her journey took longer than expected, she said. While entering on fraudulent documents does not disqualify an asylum application, it can make it harder to win, experts say. Mejia spent four months in a government children's shelter before being released to pursue her asylum claim. She moved on to Virginia, where she lived for eight months with a woman who beat her with a leather whip and made her work for no pay, according to her application for a visa for victims of human trafficking. Reuters was unable to verify her account independently. By September 2019, she had escaped and made her way to an area of rural Ohio in America's Corn Belt, dotted with poultry farms and egg processing plants. She got a job packing eggs into cartons that were shipped to grocery stores across the country. Mejia said she tried to use mini-van ride shares to get to work from her home in Indiana, 20 miles away, but sometimes there were no seats available. Neither Ohio nor Indiana allow immigrants in the country illegally to obtain drivers' licenses. She was driving to work on February 18 when she ran a stop sign, colliding with another car, according to the police report. Nobody was injured. The officer at the scene wrote her up for driving without a license, requiring her to appear in court. For Jim Groff, 76, who heard the collision from his home across the street, the facts of Mejia's detention are simple: She was in the country illegally. 'If mom wants her little baby back, send them back,' he said. But he wished the U.S. could speed up the process of allowing immigrants to come into the country legally. 'Jeepers, creepers, they're damn good workers,' he said. In late February, after her transfer to immigration detention, a distraught Mejia contacted Maira Vasquez, for help finding out where Eliazar was and how she could get him into the care of a family member. Vasquez, a U.S. citizen, attended Eliazar's birth as a community health worker and the two women had stayed in contact. When Vasquez visited Darke County's Department of Job and Family Services in March, officials told her this was a new situation for them and they weren't sure how to handle it. Asked for comment, the agency said it was unable to share details about the case, citing privacy laws. 'We continue to work closely with the family, law enforcement and our community partners to ensure child safety,' it said in a statement. Many state and local child welfare agencies don't have the training to handle cases involving the immigration system, said Kelly Kribs, co-director at the nonprofit Young Center's technical assistance program, which aims to support children caught between the federal immigration and state court systems. ICE and local child welfare agencies work as separate systems, with separate goals, she said. 'These agencies don't talk to one another,' Kribs said. That can lead to mixed messages. Mejia told Reuters in a phone call from detention in March that ICE officers told her that she could be reunited with Eliazar if she signed a document agreeing to be deported. But Vasquez said that county officials told her that Eliazar was in their custody, and they had their own processes meant to look after the boy's best interests. Mejia didn't sign – and Vasquez continued to explore options for placing Eliazar with family or friends. Mejia's sister, who asked not to be named as she is afraid of being arrested by ICE, was initially willing to take him. But county officials told her that it would be difficult for her to pass background checks as she is in the country illegally. Two friends who do have legal residency declined to take Eliazar because they feared exposing family members who are in the U.S. illegally, Vasquez said. Eliazar's father has never been involved in his life, and was not an option, Mejia said. Experts warn that forcibly separating a child from a parent can result in trauma, even after they are reunited. Mejia's 'son is being set up for major psychiatric and learning problems in the future by this separation,' Joan Lederer, a psychiatrist who evaluated Mejia at the request of her lawyer, wrote in a court filing. In detention, Mejia thought about Eliazar warming to people quickly. He doesn't talk much due to a speech delay, she said, which makes conversations by phone difficult. In April, child welfare officials sent Vasquez a picture of a smiling Eliazar with a toy truck. They told her that Eliazar's foster family had five other children. Mejia said officials told her that nobody in the house spoke Spanish and she worried he would not understand what was going on around him. By that point, Ater, the police chief who went to the address Mejia provided that February day, was alarmed that Eliazar was still in foster care. He reached out to Vasquez and said Eliazar could stay with him and his family until he is reunited with Mejia ‒ 'three minutes or three years.' He would even fly the boy to Guatemala if Mejia were to be deported. 'I have to go out and do my job,' he said. 'But on the flip side, I'm also human and this isn't cool. This little dude is not with his mom, and what does the future hold for him and what does the future hold for her?' Mejia worried that signing over custody of Eliazar to Ater could mean losing him forever. She also didn't think it would help ease access to the boy for family members, as they were unlikely to visit him at the home of a police officer for fear of being arrested by ICE, Vasquez said. She decided to wait. On July 2, an immigration judge dismissed Mejia's deportation case for a second time, ruling that she was entitled to a hearing before an asylum officer and noting she was the sole custodian of a U.S. citizen child with disabilities. This time, ICE did not contest the ruling and released Mejia the next day. Vasquez picked her up from the detention center, and the two women tried calling Darke County children's services but it was the eve of the July 4 holiday and they couldn't immediately get through. The following Monday afternoon, Mejia did meet Eliazar, in the offices of children's services. 'I just hugged him and hugged him,' she said. She said he recognized her, but didn't speak to her. He seemed attached to his foster parents, and she said she overheard him speak in English. In the July 15 custody hearing, child welfare officials recommended more visits so that Eliazar could get used to his mother again, Mejia said. Officials also ordered inspections of her home to ensure her place is appropriate for a child, she said. Darke County children's services declined to comment. Vasquez said child welfare officials expressed concerns about how Mejia would support Eliazar,now that she has lost her egg packing job. Vasquez said she had raised funds to deposit about $3,000 in a bank account in Mejia's name to show she has money to tide her over until she gets her work permit. On Monday, July 21, an official from children's services and Eliazar's foster mom dropped him off at Mejia's home with unexpected good news. He would be allowed to stay with her, with regular child welfare visits until the case is closed. 'They are not going to take him away anymore," Mejia said. 'This makes me happy.'
Reuters
18-07-2025
- Politics
- Reuters
Seven Venezuelan migrant children sent home from U.S.: minister
CARACAS, July 18 (Reuters) - Seven Venezuelan migrant children who had been separated from their families and kept in U.S. care have been sent home, Venezuelan Interior Minister Diosdado Cabello and First Lady Cilia Flores said on Friday. Speaking from Maiquetia airport near Caracas after the arrival of a plane carrying hundreds of migrants deported from Texas, Cabello said the children had been "rescued". Cabello said earlier that there were 32 migrant children in the U.S. who have been separated from their families.
Yahoo
16-07-2025
- Politics
- Yahoo
'I already want to cry.' Undocumented parents prepare for the unthinkable: giving up their kids
Sonia's son has been anxious lately, crying and asking why their neighbor had been picking him up from preschool instead of his mom. She doesn't know what to tell him. At just 4 years old, he's too young to understand the truth. Sonia has lived in the U.S. without legal status for 25 years, harvesting squash, cilantro and tomatoes in the fields of Riverside County. But she can no longer risk leaving her house to pick up her child for fear of being detained or deported by federal agents. She has begun preparing for something far worse than a missed pickup — the possibility that their separation could become permanent. Last week, Sonia visited the offices of TODEC, a legal center in the Inland Empire serving immigrants and farm workers, to fill out the forms that will allow her sister to take over the care of her three American citizen children — ages 4, 7, and 10 — in the event that she and her husband are deported. "I already want to cry," said Sonia, who requested that her full name not be used to protect her. Since June 6 — when the Department of Homeland Security began widespread raids throughout the Los Angeles region — the number of immigrant parents making emergency arrangements for their children's care has skyrocketed. Parents have flooded legal rights organizations in person and on Zoom for help filling out the forms that will designate another adult to take over responsibility of their children, many of whom are citizens, if they are detained or deported. An estimated 5.62 million American children have an undocumented household member, and nearly 2 million of them are under the age of 6. More than half of these children do not have a parent with legal status, according to a report from the Brookings Institution. It is not clear how many parents have been detained or deported during the recent raids. Since 2018, however, about 60,000 parents of U.S. citizen children have been deported, according to data provided by ICE. Data on what happened to their children isn't readily available, but those who were American citizens most commonly stay in the U.S. if only one parent is deported, said Tara Watson, who directs the Center for Economic Security and Opportunity at Brookings. Read more: Will mom get detained? Is dad going to work? Answering kids' big questions amid ICE raids Parents who are detained by ICE are "asked if they want to be removed with their children, or ICE will place the children with a safe person the parent designates," Department of Homeland Security Assistant Secretary Tricia McLaughlin said in a statement. "DHS takes its responsibility to protect children seriously and will continue to work with federal law enforcement to ensure that children are safe and protected." McLaughlin said that parents in the country illegally "can take control of their departure" with the CBP Home Mobile Application, an app with services provided by U.S. Customs and Border Protection. "The United States is offering illegal aliens $1,000 and a free flight to self-deport now," McLaughlin said. "We encourage every person here illegally to take advantage of this offer and reserve the chance to come back to the U.S. the right legal way to live the American dream. If not, you will be arrested and deported without a chance to return." Some families choose to take their children with them to their country of origin. One study estimated that from 2014-2018, there were 80,000-100,000 U.S. citizen children in Mexico as the result of parental deportation. Legal advocacy groups in California are encouraging families to prepare for the possibility of separation and are helping parents fill out the requisite forms that designate another adult to care for their children in their absence. Although some want to shift legal guardianship to another adult, that process can take several months, requires a judge's approval, and involves giving up their parental rights. Many more are instead filling out a simple form called a "Caregiver's Authorization Affidavit" that permits another adult to enroll their child in school and authorize medical care. Demand for help filling out these affidavits has increased exponentially. What used to be the occasional workshop for 20 parents has become a regular series of Zoom and in-person meetings that have reached more than a thousand, said Andres Cifuentes, an attorney at Bet Tzedek Legal Services, a nonprofit law firm in L.A. 'We've heard about children having nightmares about the possibility of being separated," he said. "We encourage parents to have this conversation in a very calm manner as if preparing for an earthquake or a flood." Luz Gallegos, executive director of TODEC, said most people are seeking help virtually because they are too afraid to leave their homes. And it's not just an influx of parents who are living in the country without legal status. For the first time, Gallegos said TODEC is seeing parents with DACA, green cards holders, and even naturalized citizens preparing for possible deportation. TODEC also runs a youth leadership and development program for the children of immigrant parents called "Monarcas Luchadoras," where they are learning how to help their families create preparedness plans and packing groceries for members of the community who are too afraid to leave their homes right now. TODEC recommends that parents pick someone who has citizenship or legal permanent residency, so they are not at risk. Gallegos said she has personally been asked by so many families to serve as caregiver that she has lost count. 'I feel like if you say yes to one, you have to say yes to all of them.' Instead, she tries to help parents think through their safety nets. Many families end up selecting teachers, child-care providers or people from their faith communities, rather than family members who are also likely to be immigrants. Susan, an immigrant from Guatemala who lives in L.A., has been a nanny for 18 years. She has a strong community of other immigrants but asked her former employer whose child she cared for during the pandemic and who is white, to be her three children's caregiver if she is deported. Susan requested that her full name not be used to protect her. "I know that her and her husband's word will be respected," Susan said. "If a Guatemalan citizen goes to fight for my children, obviously their rights won't be respected." Read more: Child-care providers brace for a painful scenario: What if ICE comes knocking? Susan, who is in her 30s, has lived in the U.S. for half her life, and her husband has been here for 30 years. During the pandemic they were essential workers, she said, providing child care, cleaning houses and doing construction. "And now we are criminals," she said. Signing the caregiver forms was "one of the most difficult decisions that I've had to make as a mom, because I feel like I am giving away my children. But I don't want them to be taken by the government if I have to go with immigration." But parents like Susan "understood that they were in the country illegally, and that this could potentially happen," said Ira Mehlman, spokesperson for the Federation for American Immigration Reform, which favors stricter immigration controls. "It is unfortunate that the kids are put in this situation, but like any other parent, they are responsible for the consequences of their decisions on their kids." He said parents of U.S. citizen children should not be given special leniency for exemptions from deportation. Mehlman favors the elimination of birthright citizenship, which President Trump called for in an executive order. A federal judge last week prohibited the order from taking effect anywhere in the U.S. Numerous studies have found that the deportation of a parent can have a profound impact on a child, including long-term developmental and behavior issues, depression and academic decline. "Following deportation of a family member, children demonstrate numerous emotional and behavioral challenges, such as eating and sleeping changes, anxiety, sadness, anger, and withdrawal," according to a 2018 policy statement from the Society for Community Research and Action, a division of the American Psychological Assn. "Even if the family is ultimately reunited, the consequences of their forced family separation often remain." For very young children in particular, separation from a parent is "tremendously traumatizing," said Sherry Berg, a clinical psychologist at Para Los Niños, which runs seven Head Start programs in Los Angeles County. Separation anxiety — the fear of being separated from the primary caregiver and something happening to them — is a normal part of early childhood development; a parent's actual deportation is "their worst nightmare." Sara, a Guatemalan immigrant from South-Central L.A., said she is thinking of self-deporting with her 9-year-old son, who is a citizen. They haven't left their apartment in weeks, except for the occasional errand to a grocery store and a quick trip to the post office to secure a passport for him. Her son does not want to move to Guatemala, a country he's never been to. "What he's told me is that in October when classes start, then hopefully the raids will have calmed for school," said Sara. In Riverside, Sonia said she's tried to shield her 4- and 7-year-old children from what is happening. But her 10-year-old has been asking about what's going to happen to his family. "Before summer vacation, the teacher called me and told me that she was going to have him evaluated, so that they could give him psychological help because he is very anxious," she said. Both she and her husband are from Michoacan, Mexico, a state fraught with drug cartel violence. She said they fear the conflict there, and work is hard to come by. If only one of them is deported, the other will stay in the U.S. to raise the children. If both are deported, she wants her children to stay in the U.S., where they are safe and have opportunities — at least until the parents figure out whether they can make a new life for the family in Mexico. Undocumented children whose parents are deported often stay under the radar by going to live with other family members, said Watson said. But those who come under the purview of ICE are often transferred to the Office of Refugee Resettlement, which may place them in institutional settings while looking for a sponsor. Maria, a home child-care provider in Highland Park with 20 years of experience, said she was recently asked by the mother of an undocumented 11-year-old at her day care if she would be willing to adopt her — permanently. 'I could feel her pain. She was saying, 'She's going to be yours. I'm not going to ask for her back," said Maria, who requested that her full name not be used to protect her. "I was speechless. It was a very drastic decision.' The mother was from Honduras, where her nephew was recently murdered, and she was terrified for her daughter's safety, Maria said. "I could see her fear in her eyes and her tears.' Maria had been caring for the girl for five years, and agreed to see a lawyer to discuss the options. But before they were able to go, she said the mother and child were picked up by federal agents. 'I was heartbroken," Maria said. "I would have adopted her." Kate Sequeira, audience editor for The Times early childhood education initiative, contributed to this story. This article is part of The Times' early childhood education initiative, focusing on the learning and development of California children from birth to age 5. For more information about the initiative and its philanthropic funders, go to Sign up for Essential California for news, features and recommendations from the L.A. Times and beyond in your inbox six days a week. This story originally appeared in Los Angeles Times.
France 24
11-07-2025
- Politics
- France 24
Venezuelans deported from US demand return of their children
Mariale Castellano, deported on May 28, was among the protesters, pleading for the return of her nine-year-old daughter who is still in the United States in the care of a foster family. "I was four to five months waiting for deportation with her, but it didn't happen," the 26-year-old mother said. At the protest, a woman read out a letter, later handed over to the UN office in Caracas, asking for "urgent action in favor of the return" of children separated from their parents. Protesters carried white balloons, photos of the young children and signs saying "SOS, USA, release our children." On June 30, the Venezuelan government denounced the "kidnapping" of 18 children under the age of 12. But the number of children stranded in the United States has increased since then. Protesters at the march also called for the return of 252 Venezuelans deported on March 15 to El Salvador by US President Donald Trump, as part of his crackdown on undocumented people alleged to be violent criminals. "Trump, we ask you from our hearts, return our sons, they are Venezuelans," said Maria Venegas, a relative of one of the Venezuelan deportees being held at El Salvador's maximum security CECOT prison. Official figures show that between February and the first week of July, some 7,000 people -- about 1,000 of them children -- have been repatriated to Venezuela from the United States and Mexico.
New York Times
07-07-2025
- Politics
- New York Times
The Ruthless Ambition of Stephen Miller
Supported by Guest Essay Stephen Miller was livid. It was a couple of months after Donald Trump's inauguration, and Mr. Miller, a senior White House adviser, believed that the federal government was not doing nearly enough to stem the tide of illegal immigration into the United States. In a relentless round of meetings, phone calls and emails, he reached deep into the federal bureaucracy and, according to a former Department of Homeland Security official, berated mid- and low-level bureaucrats inside the department. To keep their jobs, he told the officials, they needed to enforce a new policy that punished the families of undocumented immigrants by forcibly separating parents from their children. Mr. Miller's demands, however, went unmet. That's because he was issuing them back in 2017, and the homeland security secretary, John Kelly, had issued his own edict to D.H.S. officials: If Mr. Miller ordered them to do something, they were to refuse, unless Mr. Kelly, the only one of the two men who'd been confirmed by the U.S. Senate to run the department, agreed to the order. Flash forward eight years, to this past May, when Mr. Miller, still livid and now the White House deputy chief of staff, paid a visit to the Washington headquarters of Immigration and Customs Enforcement, where he berated officials for not deporting nearly enough immigrants. He told the officials that rather than develop target lists of gang members and violent criminals, they should just go to Home Depots, where day laborers gather to be hired, or to 7-Eleven convenience stores and arrest the undocumented immigrants they find there. This time, the officials did what Mr. Miller said. ICE greatly stepped up its enforcement operations, raiding restaurants, farms and work sites across the country, with arrests sometimes climbing to more than 2,000 a day. In early June, after an ICE raid in the Westlake neighborhood of Los Angeles triggered protests, Mr. Trump deployed several thousand National Guard troops and Marines to the city, over the objection of Gov. Gavin Newsom. The crisis, from the immigration raids that sparked the protests to the militarized response that tried to put the protests down, was almost entirely of Mr. Miller's making. And it served as a testament to the remarkable position he now occupies in Mr. Trump's Washington. Kristi Noem, the homeland security secretary, who reportedly accompanied Mr. Miller on his visit to ICE headquarters, seems to defer to him. 'It's really Stephen running D.H.S.,' a Trump adviser said. The attorney general, Pam Bondi, is so focused on preparing for and appearing on Fox News that she has essentially ceded control of the Department of Justice to Mr. Miller, making him, according to the conservative legal scholar Edward Whelan, 'the de facto attorney general.' And in a White House where the chief of staff, Susie Wiles, is not well versed or terribly interested in policy — 'She's producing a reality TV show every day,' another Trump adviser said, 'and it's pretty amazing, right?' — Mr. Miller is typically the final word. There is much truth to the conventional wisdom that the biggest difference between the first and second Trump presidencies is that, in the second iteration, Mr. Trump is unrestrained. The same is true of Mr. Miller. He has emerged as Mr. Trump's most powerful, and empowered, adviser. With the passage of the big policy bill, ICE will have an even bigger budget to execute Mr. Miller's vision and, in effect, serve as his own private army. Moreover, his influence extends beyond immigration to the battles the Trump administration is fighting on higher education, transgender rights, discrimination law and foreign policy. Want all of The Times? Subscribe.
