Deportaciones separan a miles de niños estadounidenses de sus padres

Univision
Fecha: 11/03/2011

Hay 5 mil niños en cuidado temporal tras quedar sin sus padres, reveló estudio

La intersección entre el proceso federal de deportación de inmigrantes y el sistema local de bienestar infantil está llevando a situaciones desastrosas, en las que padres detenidos o deportados terminan perdiendo la custodia de sus hijos porque no pueden asistir a las audiencias ni cumplir con los requisitos necesarios para recuperarlos.

Un estudio nacional sin precedentes develado el miércoles estimó que hay más de 5 mil niños en el sistema de cuidado temporal cuyos padres están detenidos por inmigración o fueron deportados a su país de origen, sin que estos hayan podido hacer nada para recuperar a sus hijos.

"Cuando por alguna razón padres e hijos se ven separados y los hijos pasan al cuidado del estado, la mayoría de las veces se logra una reunificación. Pero en el caso de los padres inmigrantes deportables, las barreras son increíblemente más elevadas", explicó Seth Freed Wessler, autor del estudio Familias Destrozadas, del Centro de Investigaciones Aplicadas (ARC).

Familias destruidas

Este problema se hace más acuciante en los estados y localidades cuyos departamentos de policía tienen acuerdos con el gobierno federal para asistir en labores de deportación, ya que tienden a realizar más deportaciones de personas con tiempo en el país y lazos familiares.

Como esa colaboración y la cantidad de deportaciones han venido aumentando, también son más los padres que han terminado por perder la custodia de sus hijos, sea temporal o permanentemente.

Según el estimado de ARC, 46 mil madres o padres de ciudadanos estadounidenses fueron deportados en los primeros meses de 2011.

En cualquier caso, las decisiones son difíciles, pero más aún cuando los niños caen en la custodia de autoridades de bienestar infantil.

Separaciones forzadas

El estudio identificó casos de este tipo de separación forzada en al menos 22 estados. En Los Ángeles, en el período estudiado, se encontró que hay 1,178 niños en hogares de cuidado temporal, con padres deportados o en proceso de deportación, un 6.2% del total.

"Cuando los niños pasan a la custodia del estado, es común en casos de detenidos por ICE que los padres pierdan todo contacto con sus hijos. A menudo los mueven a centros de detención muy alejados de su lugar previo de residencia y no les permiten asistir a las audiencias en la corte infantil", dijo Rinku Sen, directora ejecutiva de ARC.

En muchas ocasiones, los padres son inmigrantes que no han cometido ningún delito, simplemente caen en manos de las autoridades por manejar sin licencia, estar en el lugar equivocado y hasta ser víctimas de violencia doméstica.

Doble castigo

Ese fue el caso de Hilaria, una mujer en Phonix, cuya historia está explicada con detalle en el reporte. Hilaria fue arrestada tras un incidente de violencia doméstica mientras trataba de defenderse de una paliza de su marido, que la acusó a ella del ataque. Por ser indocumentada, Hilaria terminó detenida por inmigración.

Los niños quedaron con él, hasta que algún tiempo después las autoridades de bienestar infantil se dieron cuenta de que él abusaba de las drogas y se llevaron a los pequeños.

Hilaria sigue detenida y sus hijos en foster care. Cuando fue entrevistada en un centro de detención por los investigadores del estudio, la mujer declaró que "aguanté el abuso por mis hijos, pero ahora me los han robado".

Familias destruidas

Hay otros casos similares. Dos hermanas indocumentadas fueron arrestadas en Nuevo México y deportadas cuatro meses después. Ninguna de ellas tenía un delito en su haber y sin embargo sus tres hijos fueron colocados en cuidado temporal, donde permanecieron durante 14 meses hasta que gracias a la intervención del consulado mexicano pudieron reunirse en México.

No obstante, los casos con final feliz no son tan comunes, dijeron los investigadores. Las leyes actuales requieren detención obligatoria para la mayoría de los inmigrantes en proceso de deportación y no existe un mecanismo formal que permita a una persona detenida participar activamente del proceso que se inicia cuando los menores son puestos en custodia del estado.

Asimismo, el sistema de bienestar infantil no tiene mecanismos para actuar y, según las conclusiones del estudio, a menudo no tienen una idea clara de lo que está pasando y creen que por el hecho de estar detenidos, las personas deben ser delincuentes y, por tanto, la reunificación resulta menos deseable.

En los casos en los que los consulados de las personas deportables son contactadas y entran en acción, se observan mejores resultados, pero esto no ocurre sino en un puñado de lugares donde las autoridades del condado han buscado activamente esa relación.

Fustigan al gobierno

Los autores del estudio fustigaron a las autoridades de inmigración por lo que caracterizaron como indiferencia ante la situación de estas familias.

"ICE no siente que tenga ninguna responsabilidad por las vidas reales que la gente tenía antes de la detención", dijo Wessler. "No hacen prácticamente nada para facilitar el contacto de los detenidos con las autoridades de bienestar infantil".

Pero una portavoz de ICE negó las acusaciones.

"No hemos visto el contenido de este reporte, pero en realidad nuestro departamento hace lo posible para asegurar que los detenidos tienen la oportunidad de hacer las decisiones importantes respecto al cuidado y custodia de sus hijos", dijo Virginia Kice.

"De acuerdo con el memo de prioridades emitido en junio de 2010, ICE generalmente no arresta a individuos que son los principales custodios de menores, a menos que sean sujetos legalmente a la detención obligatoria por el riesgo de fuga o la severidad de su historia criminal".

Cifras escandalosas

El reporte de ARC, sin embargo, parece contradecir esta afirmación a cada paso.

"No me sorprende para nada ver estas cifras. Cuando deportas a más de un millón de personas hay padres y madres de niños ciudadanos... muchas veces se llevan a ambos, dejando a estos niños desprotegidos. En los viajes que he hecho por el país lo he visto en carne propia", dijo el congresista Luis Gutiérrez, al reaccionar ante el reporte.

“Cuando por alguna razón padres e hijos se ven separados y los hijos pasan al cuidado del estado, la mayoría de las veces se logra una reunificación. Pero en el caso de los padres inmigrantes deportables, las barreras son increíblemente más elevada”, agregó.

http://noticias.univision.com/inmigracion/noticias/article/2011-11-03/estudio-deportacion-padres

Más de 16 mil hondureños han sido deportados de EE.UU. en lo que va del año

La Tribuna
6 junio, 2011

TEGUCIGALPA.- Las autoridades del Centro de Atención al Migrante Retornado (CAMR), informaron que en lo que va del año más de 16 mil hondureños fueron deportados de los Estados Unidos. De estos, 8,563 regresaron vía aérea y 7,796 vía terrestre, en su mayoría hombres, seguido de mujeres y niños.

Según la directora del Centro de Atención al Migrante Retornado (CAMR), Sor Valdete Willemann, la cifra ha bajado en un 1 por ciento en comparación con el año pasado. No obstante, no puede asegurar que esta condición persista en el transcurso del 2011.

“Si la Ley de Arizona se aplica en otros Estados, esperaríamos más deportados”, advirtió.

Una de las situaciones que mantiene preocupadas a las autoridades hondureñas es que cada semana llegan entre seis a 12 buses repletos de inmigrantes deportados desde México.

Willemann anunció que el miercoles, a las 9:00, unos 135 hondureños arribarán al aeropuerto “Ramón Villeda Morales”, en San Pedro Sula y que otro tanto lo hará a las 10:30 en el aeropuerto Toncontín.

NIÑOS

Por su parte el director de Casa Alianza, Manuel Capellin, indicó que el número de niños que regresan en bus al país cada semana asciende a 40. Este sale cada semana desde Tapachula, México, a las 3:00 de la mañana y llega a la aduana Corinto, entre Honduras y Guatemala, a las 5:00 de la tarde del mismo día.

“En la frontera hay un equipo de Casa Alianza que los está esperando, pero siempre estamos con la frustración de que muchos de esos niños se bajan del bus y empiezan a caminar hacia el norte, y vuelven a Guatemala”, comentó Capellin.

“Esta es una situación muy compleja que tiene que ver con muchas cosas, como desintegración en la familia, abusos, búsqueda de mejores oportunidades. Muchas veces son niños que dicen bueno mi mamá o abuelita está sola y yo las voy a ayudar”.

Capellin pidió a la directora del Instituto Hondureño de la Niñez y la Familia (Ihnfa), Suyapa Núnez, que enfoque una política de relaciones exteriores basada en la protección y en la defensa de los niños migrantes, que se calculan en ocho mil cada año, aproximadamente.

http://www.latribuna.hn/2011/06/06/mas-de-16-mil-hondurenos-han-sido-deportados-de-ee-uu-en-lo-que-va-del-ano/

Grandmother, Mom, Girl, 9, Deported

By KATIA LÓPEZ-HODOYÁN
NBC San Diego
Sat, Nov 13, 2010

Deportations are not that uncommon in Escondido, but a recent case is triggering some controversy.

It involves a grandmother, a 28-year-old mother and a 9-year-old girl.

Last week the family was driving to a clinic, because the young girl had a high fever. But the girl’s mother, Minerva Santos, 28, ran a stop sign on Mission and Fig Street.

According to Lt. Mike Cea from the County’s Sheriff’s Department, Santos almost crashed into the car of a deputy sheriff who was passing by.

Santos didn’t have a driver’s license.

“When the immigration issue came up,” said Lt. Cea. “Deputy Wayland rightfully notified the Border Patrol who are the experts in this area.”

Critics say the issue was handled inappropriately because the 9-year-old was patted down.

“From our perspective it was an extreme inspection,” said Pedro Rios from the American Friends Service Committee. “The patting down of the 9 year old girl who was sick… the most she could have had was a pencil, a notebook.”

But the Sheriff’s department says it acted lawfully by following their standard procedure.

“I understand the issue with the 9-year-old girl,” says Lt. Cea. “But it's no different than if it was an adolescent or a juvenile. It's a standard practice for officer’s safety. It’s what we do when transferring detainees.”

Human Rights advocates argue that cases like these only alienate the Latino community from officials, making it more difficult for them to report crimes.

“With this incident that took place there is very little confidence the Latino community has with officials, including the sheriff's office,” said Rios.

The Sheriff’s Department says people living in Escondido illegally shouldn’t fear the authorities.

“Our deputy wasn't out looking for undocumented residents," said Cea. "It was the near collision that provoked all this. They should have no fear of contacting us [when reporting crimes].”

Santos has two other daughters in Escondido. For now, a friend is looking after them.

Despite some criticism, in the last few days the Sheriff’s department has received calls from residents showing their support for how the case was handled.

http://www.nbcsandiego.com/news/local-beat/Grandmother-Mom-Girl-9-Deported-107729813.html

Children of the Exodus: What becomes of kids who are deported without their families?

By Melissa del Bosque
Texas Observer
Thursday, November 04, 2010

On the Hildago-Reynosa International Bridge, there is a small white room tucked inside the Mexican immigration office where children, apprehended and then released by the U.S. Border Patrol, file in day after day and wait for a family member to claim them.

The office is run by Mexico’s social services agency called the Desarrollo Integral de la Familia, or DIF. It receives dozens of repatriated children every week ranging from infants a few days old to 18-year-olds. As the children wait, they peer out, unseen, through a mirrored, plate-glass window at passing motorists. The children arrive with T-shirts covered in mud and the cuffs of their torn jeans still damp from the Rio Grande. Some have cuts and scrapes from running through thorny mesquite groves and cacti, trying to evade U.S. border agents. Others have angry red wounds from snakebites or puncture marks from an IV drip after being rescued from heat exhaustion in the desert. Then there are the marks you can’t see: having been kidnapped or raped by traffickers, or having witnessed the death of a family member or friend during their journeys.

The children clutch their belongings in small, clear plastic bags with Department of Homeland Security tags attached. They carry remarkably little for such a perilous journey. Inside the plastic bags there might be a cell phone, shoe laces, (removed for their protection while in U.S. custody), and maybe a rosary, or some wadded-up American cash, or a few pesos. They appear downtrodden, exhausted yet resolute: With few exceptions they’ll cross again because their parents or loved ones are en el otro lado and on the other side of the Rio Grande there is hope. Hope to study, to work, or to just hug their mothers or fathers again.

The teenagers act tough and stare at the wall or the floor while they wait to be claimed. Sometimes they crack jokes so the younger kids won’t cry. The little kids can’t hide their grief. They cry for their parents or their abuelos, which makes it harder for the older kids. A 29-year-old woman with the unlikely name of Agatha Christie Cano (her father is a mystery buff) is the sole employee at the DIF office on the bridge. She sits behind a small wooden desk, a pink daisy pen with a smiley face in a pencil holder by her side. Each morning she fans out on her desk the questionnaires that she’ll fill out during her interviews with the children. Cano is cheerful, but then she has only been working at the DIF for six weeks. As soon as she finishes nursing school next year, she says, she plans to apply for work in the United States.

Cano must piece together a child’s history with information from the Mexican Consulate in McAllen. The consulate conducts an initial interview to make sure the children’s rights have not been violated before U.S. Border agents send them back to Mexico. Cano helps figure out who will claim the children once they’ve been returned, which is more difficult than it might seem. Every child’s family is scarred by death, divorce or migration to the United States. They also share poverty and few opportunities for work or education.

Two brothers from Zacatecas, Armando, 17, and José, 13, arrive on a Thursday afternoon. Border Patrol apprehended them Wednesday morning near Roma, Texas, after the brothers walked several hours in 103-degree heat. Cano listens intently as Armando, the eldest, tells their story, his face impassive as his younger brother starts to cry. After seven hours of walking, their mother had collapsed. The coyote and the rest of the group kept walking. Armando went for help while José stayed behind with their mother. He walked to a highway and flagged down a truck driver who called Border Patrol. By the time he returned with the agents, their mother was dead, and his brother was nearly unconscious. The agents inserted an IV and pumped fluids into his arm, which saved his life. José sobs quietly as his brother speaks. Cano offers him a tissue. “We never wanted to go,” Armando tells her. “We were doing fine where we were.” Cano nods. His mother had left them with their grandmother and crossed illegally several years ago, he tells her. She lived in Chicago, remarried, and had a 3-year-old son in the United States. After their grandmother died, problems started among the family members in Zacatecas.

“My mother wanted us all to be together again,” Armando says. “She said we could live together
in Chicago.”

“Do you have anyone, an uncle or an aunt who can come for you?” Cano asks. “Does your father know you’re here?”

“We haven’t seen him in years,” Armando says, shaking his head.

Cano fills out the questionnaire. The boys watch blankly. “Isn’t there anyone who can come for you?” she presses Armando. The room is quiet except for the sound of José crying.

After a few hours of waiting for a relative, José, Armando and four other teenage boys are herded into a van and driven to a larger DIF shelter for repatriated children in downtown Reynosa. A lone policeman guards the entrance. The shelter is in a tough, rundown neighborhood near the railroad tracks. Surrounded by a stucco wall, it has tall iron gates and iron bars over the windows.

There is a funereal pall over the city, worsened by the searing August heat and the ongoing drug war. Everyone seems wary, hunkered down. No one goes out after dark. A week earlier, thugs threw a grenade at the city hall. The mayor was rumored to be living with his family in McAllen for his own protection. A DIF employee mentions that his office downtown was strafed with bullets two weeks earlier. He and the other employees hid under their desks until the gun battle was over.

Even with the military Humvees circling the city’s plaza, the children keep coming. The number of unaccompanied children passing through here remains constant despite the spiraling violence. As of mid-August, 800 children had come through the shelter since January, according to Eleuterio Valdez, the shelter’s director. In 2008, there were 1,550 children, and in 2009, Valdez housed 1,670 kids.

It’s a Wednesday afternoon, and Valdez is busy. He fans himself with a notebook; there’s no AC at the shelter. A hysterical woman is on the phone from Florida. She paid a man in Reynosa to smuggle her 3-year-old-son to Florida. She hasn’t heard from the smuggler in a week. Valdez assures her he’ll call if the toddler is brought in. As he hangs up the phone, the six boys file in, sent from Cano’s small DIF office on the bridge. Armando and José, who lost their mother the previous afternoon, look as if they’re still in shock. Valdez tells me the shelter provides psychological counseling if it’s needed. In the lobby, there is a door marked “psychologist,” but I never see anyone there during the course of a week.

The other boys are sullen. Valdez and the policeman pat them down for weapons, and Valdez takes their belts and meager belongings, which they still carry in the plastic Homeland Security bags. He places their things in yellow manila envelopes. “This is for your safety,” he says. “You’ll get your things back when your relatives come.” The boys watch, downcast, as he places their belongings in a file cabinet, then locks it.

At least 80 percent of the children who pass through here are boys. They are housed in a separate dorm on the other side of the walled compound from the girls. Valdez keeps the boys locked inside when they’re not in the cafeteria. “The boys are a lot more adventurous,” he says.

Inside the dorm room crammed with bunk beds, a lanky teenager named Pedro, 16, sits on the couch watching a soccer match on television. His mother and four siblings live 35 miles away in Harlingen, Texas. From the Mexican side of the river, he can see the traffic signs pointing the way home. He’s been trying to get there for six months.

This is his second time at the DIF shelter, he says. Last night a Border Patrol helicopter spotted him and seven others on the U.S. side of the river. They were chased through the brush. An agent tackled Pedro. He spent the night in a freezing holding cell. Today he’s back in Reynosa. When he was 5 years old, his mother smuggled him across the river. He attended elementary and middle schools in Harlingen. Then his grandmother became ill in Michoacán. His mother decided Pedro, the eldest at 13, should return to Mexico to help care for his grandmother, which he did until she passed away. Now he’s stuck in Reynosa trying to get back to his family. He nearly drowned once already, he says, floating on an inner tube across the swollen river choked with branches and refuse from upstream. The Rio Grande is at its highest level in 30 years. The McAllen newspaper is full of reports of migrants’ bodies being fished out of the river by Border Patrol agents on the U.S. side of the garbage-strewn riverbank.

Pedro is burning through his family’s savings, having already paid smugglers hundreds of dollars. It’s impossible to cross without paying the Gulf cartel, which keeps tight control over the Mexican side of the river. Just to float an inner tube to McAllen costs $400. “My stepfather gives me the money,” Pedro says. His mother is remarried to a U.S. citizen. Every time Pedro’s apprehended, his stepfather drives to Reynosa and bails him out. Then he gives Pedro more money to pay another smuggler. Pedro wonders how much longer his stepfather will keep coming. “I want to go back to school in Harlingen,” he says. “There isn’t anything left for me in Michoacán.”

His mother can’t become legal in the United States. In 1996, Congress stiffened immigration laws so that anyone who entered illegally and married a U.S. citizen could no longer pay a fine to become legal. Instead, his mother would have to return to Mexico, wait years then reapply to enter. These days, the U.S. government isn’t inclined to allow anyone to re-enter once they’ve admitted to entering illegally. It’s a Catch-22.

Valdez, like every DIF official I speak to, assures me that before a child is released to anyone, DIF makes sure they are related. A battery of documentation is required, including birth certificates and a photo ID from the relative with a surname matching the child’s. They say they always reunite the children with their families and send them home. But what happens if home is on the other side of the Rio Grande? Or if there is no home?

I arrange an interview with the head of the DIF in Matamoros, Marisa Castañeda de Silva, the mayor’s wife. (Every mayor’s wife is obliged to run the city’s DIF office, while the governor’s wife oversees DIF for the entire state.) After 20 minutes of waiting in the lobby, I am ushered into a conference room with soft light, scented candles and plates of cookies. Castañeda plies me with cookies and thanks me for coming. In 2008, a Mexican congressional committee reported 90,000 children had been sent back by U.S. authorities to border cities like hers. At least 13,500 were never claimed. I ask Castañeda whether children are being abandoned in her city and what happens to them after they leave the DIF? She begins reading from scripted answers on index cards handed to her by a public relations employee. “The shelter is always ready. We provide blankets and clothes for the children,” she smiles. “We work closely with the church to raise money for food and clothes for the shelter.” I wait politely, and then ask again. The public relations employee scribbles furiously on an index card, then hands it to her. “We work to reunite children with their parents,” she says, then refers me to Lilia Orizaga, who runs the shelter. Her assistant sends me on my way with a bag of cookies.

Matamoros receives about half the children that Reynosa does at its shelter—324 children from January to mid-August of this year, says Orizaga. A city of 450,000, Matamoros is smaller than Reynosa and not as desirable a place to cross. In Reynosa, it’s a straight shot to San Antonio and Interstate 35, then on to any destination in the United States. Pass through Matamoros to Brownsville, and just north of the city you reach vast and barren ranchland, which is probably why Border Patrol has sent 14-year-old Susana here. This is her fifth failed attempt to reach the United States in a month. Susana arrived at the Matamoros shelter an hour ago. She clutches a small, black duffel bag as if she might be leaving at any moment. She was in the Reynosa DIF already, Orizaga says, but a cousin bailed her out. Susana says they crossed that night in an inflatable boat. The boat became trapped among broken tree limbs and debris. They were lost for five hours, until Border Patrol agents fished them out.

Her goal is to make it to Kansas, where her father works. “I haven’t seen him in five years,” she says. It costs $2,500 to get to there. “My father pays half in Reynosa and the other half when I arrive in McAllen,” she says. She’s been caught three times by Border Patrol: once on a bus in Houston, the second time at the San Antonio bus station, the third time on the river. She just spent two days in a Border Patrol holding cell, where she says she was scared at first because she was alone, “but then the cell filled with at least 10 other children, and we were all together.” She doesn’t know what happened to her cousin, she says. “The smugglers separated us before we crossed.” Susana says she’s ready to go home. “I don’t want to stay here. I’m tired of fighting,” she says.

Orizaga says the Reynosa shelter should never have released Susana to her cousin. “This time it will have to be a parent,” she says. But Susana is doubtful that either parent will come to Matamoros. “I don’t believe my father will come for me, and the truth is, I don’t think my mother will, either, because she has to take care of my younger brothers and sisters,” she says.

Susana is one of three kids who say they’ll go home once they leave the shelter. The other two are Armando and José, who never wanted to cross in the first place. After two days, an uncle materializes at the Reynosa shelter to drive the boys back to Zacatecas. They are the exceptions. Dozens of other kids I interview over two weeks in Matamoros and Reynosa say they’ll cross again as soon as they have the money.

They cycle through the shelters again and again. On the Reynosa bridge, Cano says in the six weeks she’s worked for the DIF, she’s seen some kids multiple times already. “The children from Reynosa and the other border cities will come through five, seven, even 11 times,” she says. Cano refers kids who pass though repeatedly to another government program downtown that offers computer courses and vocational training. The hope is that the children will go back to school or find work instead of crossing the river. “But I’m not sure they actually go,” she says.

The only lucrative employment in Reynosa these days seems to be smuggling humans or contraband. There are people in Reynosa poised to help anyone who wants to cross the Rio Grande, providing they pay a price. There are pateros (human smugglers) at the plaza, the bus station or just milling around downtown, a man who works with the migrant community says. He asks to remain anonymous because he fears retribution from the cartel. “Back in the ’90s, being a patero was a trade, and there were rules,” he says. “You paid your money, and they delivered you to the other side.” Now cartel thugs and organized crime dominate the business. What can’t be made in contraband is recouped smuggling migrants. If the children are lucky, they’ll find a smuggler who plays by the old rules, and they’ll make it safely to their destination. With the Gulf cartel in charge of the river and the security gauntlet on the U.S. side, the chances of crossing safely grow increasingly slim.

Sometimes the kids are paid by smugglers to be caminantes (walkers) accompanying migrants through the remote South Texas ranches. They get from $10 to $20 a head for every migrant they guide through the rough terrain, he says. Others are paid or intimidated by the cartels to smuggle drug loads in backpacks. “These children are like uncut diamonds. Criminals can mold them any way they want,” the man says. “With all of the security problems we have now, a lot of children are being taken for many different things, and it’s a very, very big problem.” Minors are seldom charged with crimes in the United States. Instead, Border Patrol returns them to Mexico, where they are placed in a DIF shelter.

“The children are dumped back in Reynosa like packages,” says Rebeca Rodriguez, director of Reynosa’s nonprofit center for human rights, Centro Estudios Fronterizos y Derechos Humanos. Rodriguez used to work for the DIF in the neighboring city of Rio Bravo in the mid-’90s. A social worker, she left the agency after a year and says the experience left her frustrated. “I’m sure DIF told you that a relative with an ID and documents must come to pick the child up, but the documents can be forged. And they don’t monitor the children after they’ve gone. They just give them back and say ‘bye bye,’ ” she says. “With all of the technology we have, they should be able to monitor them for at least three months.”

I try to investigate what happens to the kids once they leave the shelter, but I underestimate the fear and paranoia fueled by drug violence in Reynosa. Several journalists have been kidnapped or killed, so there’s no media coverage about the cartels or organized crime. There’s no official information from the city government, either. The city is rife with rumors—some true, some not. Among other things, I hear that the Gulf cartel is the de facto authority in the city. I hear that migrants, including children, are being kidnapped at the bus station and that the local police are involved. The police also keep an eye on the river for the cartel. No city official will talk about the impact of organized crime on the children. Every time I ask about los malos (the bad people), as people refer to them here, the officials change the subject. When I discreetly ask some of the children whether they’re afraid or have had encounters with los malos, they look at me blankly or stare at the floor. On the Reynosa bridge, a lanky 15-year-old boy insists I leave the office while he speaks to Cano alone. “It’s something very serious,” he says. Later, she tells me the boy begged her not to contact his mother because he’s afraid she’ll be kidnapped at the bus station.

After I pester a DIF official in Reynosa for days, he finally opens up. He says he’ll talk anonymously about organized crime. He furtively glances both ways down the hallway in front of his office, then gestures for me to come inside. He closes and locks both doors. “Look, I know what’s happening,” he says, mopping his brow with a tissue, “because we talk to the children.” The man confirms that children are kidnapped at the bus station and that police are involved. “These are very well-known secrets,” he says. “But we cannot talk about it openly because we live here, and it’s very, very delicate. There are people in uniform and people without uniforms watching all the time.” He means that if you say something publicly that might enrage organized crime, a group of armed men might show up at your door one morning, maybe with a police escort, march you to their SUV at gunpoint, and your family will never see you again. Someday, he tells me, when things get better, he’ll write a book about it.

Many kidnapped children don’t fall under the jurisdiction of the DIF because they’re not Mexican, the official says. They come from Central and South America and are waiting to “jump to the other side,” as he puts it. From January to August of this year, Mexican immigration had deported 44,918 children to Central and South America. The migrant advocate in Reynosa tells me the kidnappings and extortions have been plaguing the city at least since 2004. “In the last three years, things have gotten really horrible,” he says. “The migrants are terrified. They don’t want to denounce the crimes anymore. They just want to go home.” There are safe houses all over the city, he says, where migrants are being held for ransom. It’s the worst for migrants with relatives in the United States because they are perceived to have more money.

Two weeks later, the massacre of 72 migrants at a ranch near Matamoros makes international headlines. It’s discovered that they were Central and South American migrants too poor to pay the Zeta cartel’s ransom. The only confirmed survivor is an 18-year-old boy from Ecuador.

The kids are too frightened to talk about their experiences, but at a shelter run by Catholic nuns, I speak with a slight, 27-year-old Guatemalan man with the face of a teenager. Speaking in a whisper, he says he asked a man on the street for directions to a money-changing house. Instead, the man tied his hands with rope, took his shoes, and threw him into a dark room with several other bound men. The kidnappers had taken $250 from him and were trying to extort his poverty-stricken family for more. He’s lucky, he says, because he escaped. He takes his baseball cap off, and I notice a fresh scar across his eyebrow. He wants to be deported to Guatemala, but he’s terrified to leave the shelter. The kidnappers are outside, he says, waiting. The nuns can do nothing to prevent it.

As I leave the shelter, I see a group of men in baseball caps and jeans standing across the street. Three men propped against the wall of the shelter smoke a joint. Their eyes are red. They stare emptily back at me. I look up, and a line of men sits watching from a building ledge overlooking the shelter. Dressed in black T-shirts, they remind me of vultures.

Back at Agatha Christie cano’s office on the Reynosa bridge, three teenage boys file into the small office and wait. Chances are, the motorists chatting on their cell phones or listening to their radios on the bridge will never notice what goes on below them. On the Rio Grande, people are also on the move, hundreds of them, day after day, covered in the mud and muck of the river. A mud-encrusted, wide-eyed teen is marched past me by two uniformed immigration officers. He’s Central American, Cano says. Since he’s not Mexican, he’s out of her jurisdiction. The immigration officials won’t do interviews. The topic of immigration has become too politically sensitive, one of them says. The boy is whisked away.

If government leaders could rise above the divisive politics, they could stop this humanitarian crisis. Mexico and the United States have binational accords and a repatriation program to protect migrant children, yet neither country ensures they’re safely returned home. The U.S. Border Patrol and the DIF could set up a database to monitor children at risk to prevent them from ending up on the streets. The U.S. Congress could pass comprehensive immigration reform that includes a family reunification process to prevent children from being dumped in Mexican shelters. The Border Patrol already has a congressional mandate to screen for vulnerable kids and refer them to U.S. agencies that can help, yet advocates say it’s not being done. One thing is for certain: Until politicians on both sides of the river eradicate the poverty that uproots these families, children won’t stop coming. Even if the United States puts soldiers on the border and spends billions on fences and high-tech equipment, they’re not going to stop the exodus.

At least not until there’s something to hope for at home. A skinny 15-year-old from the mountains of Veracruz slumps in an office chair in front of Cano’s desk. She picks up a pen and begins filling out the paperwork. He has nothing but a Catholic rosary. The cuffs of his jeans are tattered and still damp from the river. “Aren’t you afraid of being killed?” Cano asks the boy. “Wouldn’t it be better to go back home?” He shakes his head, “No.” His father is dead, he says. His mother and three younger brothers and sisters are at home waiting for him to send money if he makes it. “Where I come from,” he says, “we’re not afraid to die.”

Support for this article was provided by the Investigative Fund at The Nation Institute.

Destined for deportation?

By Shankar Vedantam
Washington Post Staff Writer
Tuesday, November 2, 2010; B01

Last Christmas Eve, Maria Bolanos made a decision she would later regret: During a fight with her partner, she called the Prince George's County police and sought their protection.

The call for help had disastrous consequences for Bolanos, a 28-year-old undocumented immigrant from El Salvador. Within months, she found herself involved in an increasingly controversial immigration enforcement program designed to deport undocumented criminals.

Bolanos now faces deportation and possible separation from her 21-month-old daughter, who was born here and is a U.S. citizen.

Her case illustrates what immigrant-rights advocates and some local officials consider the shortcomings of Secure Communities, the centerpiece of the Obama administration's immigration enforcement efforts and a program that has helped generate a record number of deportations.

Secure Communities, which operates in the District, Maryland, Virginia and soon will be running nationwide, relies on fingerprints collected by local authorities when a person is charged with anything from a traffic violation to murder.

In Bolanos's case, the officer who responded to the domestic dispute at her apartment in Hyattsville later charged her with illegally selling a $10 phone card to a neighbor - an allegation she denies. The charge was eventually dropped, but by then Bolanos had been been fingerprinted and found to be in the country illegally by U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement.

She has been told she probably will be deported after a Wednesday hearing before an immigration judge in Baltimore.

Officials with Immigration and Customs Enforcement said removals during the fiscal year that ended Sept. 30 included more than 1,000 murderers, nearly 6,000 sex offenders, 45,000 drug offenders and 28,000 drunk drivers. The number fell short of the agency expectation of 400,000 deportations but still surpassed the 2009 total of 387,790, the previous record.

Although ICE officials have touted the large numbers of criminals who are being deported via Secure Communities, they are unapologetic about the significant number of non-criminals being removed as well. In the past year, more than half of the 392,000 immigrants deported were convicted criminals; the rest had overstayed their visas or entered the country without authorization.

"ICE cannot and will not turn a blind eye to those who violate federal immigration law," said ICE spokesman Brian Hale. "While ICE's enforcement efforts prioritize convicted criminal aliens, ICE maintains the discretion to take action on any alien it encounters."

Not surprisingly, immigrant-rights groups have been critical of the administration's efforts to ratchet up deportations without delivering on the president's campaign promise to create a path to citizenship for the country's 11 million undocumented immigrants.

But Secure Communities also has come under attack in Arlington County, the District and other jurisdictions, where local officials worry that it is discouraging undocumented immigrants who are crime victims and witnesses from coming forward.

Those concerns are well justified, said Bolanos, speaking through a translator.

"You would have to be crazy to call the police," she said. "I would never call the police again."
Detained and desperate

Maria Bolanos works two jobs to pay her bills. She does janitorial work at an apartment complex Monday through Friday from 7 a.m. to 3 p.m. and pulls a 6 p.m.-to-3 a.m. shift at a restaurant Thursday through Sunday.

"Dora the Explorer" plays endlessly on the TV in her second-floor apartment, in deference to the wishes of her daughter, Melisa Arellano-Bolanos.

Framed pictures of "The Last Supper" and of Jesus and Mary hang above the dining table. A photo of Bolanos's partner, Fernando Arellano, hugging Melisa is tucked into a corner of one of the frames.

Bolanos said she came to the United States in 2004 in search of a better life. She paid $7,000 to "coyotes" to help her cross the border via the Arizona desert.

The first time, her party was caught, she said. She was released in the desert across the Arizona border from Mexico after being fingerprinted and photographed by authorities - and almost immediately crossed the border again.

She found her way to the Washington area and met Arellano at a restaurant where she worked. Arellano, now 34, was also undocumented and from Mexico. They fell in love and moved in together. Melisa was born in January 2008 at Washington Hospital Center.

The couple's fight began when Arellano came home late on Christmas Eve, Bolanos said, and it quickly escalated into a shouting match.

By the time police arrived, Arellano had left the apartment.

Police charged Arellano with assault. That charge was dropped when neither Bolanos nor the police officer showed up in court, according to a spokesman for the Prince George's states attorney's office.

Months later, the fight forgotten, Bolanos found an arrest warrant waiting for her on the charge that she was selling phone cards without a license.

The charge eventually was thrown out, but not before she was fingerprinted and the prints were shared with ICE through Secure Communities.

Authorities determined that she was in the country illegally and ordered her detained. Her ankles and wrists were shackled, she said, and she was moved to a detention facility in Upper Marlboro.

Bolanos said she told authorities she was still breastfeeding her daughter, but that they initially disregarded her plea to be released. After a doctor found that her breasts were engorged with milk, she was fitted with a locator ankle bracelet and sent home, pending the deportation hearing Wednesday.
Parents in jeopardy

In August, Arellano was booked by police for making an illegal traffic turn. Police found he did not have a driver's license and arrested him. His fingerprints went to ICE, too - and he was detained. Now he is also facing deportation.

"In both of these cases, Secure Communities functioned exactly as it was designed to, allowing ICE to identify individuals booked into jail for a state crime and who were also present in the country unlawfully," said ICE spokesman Hale.

But that's not how immigrant-rights group see it.

ICE is misrepresenting the program in order to implement a nationwide deportation instrument, said Gustavo Andrade, organizing director at CASA of Maryland, which has been trying to help Bolanos. "Even one family destroyed because of this kind of program makes it unacceptable."

Prince George's State's Attorney Glenn F. Ivey also expressed concern about a phone card charge leading to a deportation proceeding.

"We should target our limited state and federal law enforcement dollars on killers, rapists, child molesters, human traffickers and violent gang members," Ivey said in a statement. "This kind of defendant should not be a high priority."

If Bolanos and Arellano are both deported, he would have to go to Mexico and she to El Salvador, meaning Melisa would be left without at least one of her parents. In El Salvador, Bolanos said, her family has faced death threats from gangs, and her brother was killed a year ago.

As she talked, Melisa played with the charger attached to her mother's ankle bracelet. Bolanos spends two hours every day charging the device, which looks like a BlackBerry attached to her leg with a thick band of black rubber. It hurts when she walks.

Bolanos wears long jeans to cover the ankle bracelet.

"I'm really ashamed to show it in public," she said. "People see it and think I'm a murderer. I try to keep it covered at all times."

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2010/11/01/AR2010110106661.html

Deported Mexicans leave two small kids in Lodi

By Stephen Magagnini
The Sacramento Bee
Nov. 2, 2010 - 12:00 am | Page 1B

LODI – Every day, 2-year-old Kimberly Vrabo peeks around her apartment complex for her mom. If she hears police sirens, she runs inside.

Kimberly's mother, Maria Magdalena Perez-Rivera, got into a fight with her boyfriend, Vicente Tellez, on a Saturday night.

The next morning, Perez-Rivera's sister called Lodi police. Two days later, the undocumented couple were deported to Mexico, leaving behind Kimberly and the couple's 3-month-old son Anthony Tellez.

Their swift removal has shattered the family. And Sacramento's Mexican Consul General Carlos González Gutiérrez and UC Davis Law School Dean Kevin Johnson question whether justice has truly been served.

More people are being deported than ever – 50,000 in Northern California in the last three years, compared to 17,317 from 2001-2003, according to U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement. Half the deportees have been convicted of crimes.

But the Lodi couple, each charged with felony domestic violence, were never tried or convicted. Perez-Rivera, whose family claims she was beaten repeatedly, was not given the chance to apply for a U visa, which protects crime victims from being deported if they cooperate with law enforcement.

"This deportation scenario is all too common. It illustrates the potential pitfalls of local police cooperating with immigration authorities," said Johnson. "Immigrant women in particular are going to underreport domestic violence, and generally, immigrant communities are going to be less likely to cooperate with police for fear of being deported."

One third of Lodi's 65,394 people are Latinos.

"We do not deport people; we encourage victims and witnesses of crimes to feel free to speak with us," said police spokesman Eric Bradley. "Our interest is in protecting the community."

When the couple were booked into the Lodi jail on felony charges, their fingerprints were sent to ICE under the federal government's partnership with local law enforcement, Operation Secure Communities, designed to identify criminal aliens for possible removal.

"Instead of giving them a chance to talk to a judge and present their case for some type of legal relief to resolve the issue, two days later the ICE van picks them up and they are sent to Mexico," said González Gutiérrez. "The tragedy is that there are two little kids who remain with the grandmother."

Perez-Rivera's mom, Ana Maria Rivera, quit her $500 a week job at the cherry packing plant to care for her grandkids. "Maria's sad, she's afraid. She wants to come back, but she doesn't want to go back with Vicente," Rivera said.

If Perez-Rivera, 21, is caught trying to return to the United States, she could face two to 20 years for illegal re-entry.

Tellez, a 21-year-old farmworker, and Perez-Rivera started going out about a year ago and moved into their own apartment, according to family.

At 11 a.m. Sept. 19, Lodi police got a call from Perez-Rivera's 17-year-old sister Ana. "I wanted to go to church with her and I saw her with bruises and scratches on her face and body," she said.

That Sunday afternoon Tellez contacted police "to share his version," Bradley said. "He had scratches, a cut lip and a possible bite mark. It looks like the argument escalated into mutual combat; that's why she was arrested as well."

Neither Perez-Rivera nor Tellez had prior contact with police, Bradley said.

Police referred the case to the San Joaquin County District Attorney's Office, which decided not to prosecute. The office did not return numerous calls from The Bee.

If the couple had been booked on lesser misdemeanor domestic violence charges, "ICE might not even have picked up on this because they're focusing on felonies," Johnson said. "But there's an incentive to charge them with the maximum and get them deported so you don't ever have to deal with the criminal charges."

On Sept. 21, Perez-Rivera was taken into custody by ICE agents, who are "routinely notified by jail officials when foreign nationals are booked," said ICE spokeswoman Lori K. Haley.

Perez-Rivera waived her right to an immigration hearing and signed documents agreeing to voluntarily depart the United States, Haley said. She was repatriated to Mexico later that day.

"She was told no bond was possible and she would have to stay in jail for an indefinite amount of time without her kids – the worst of both worlds," González Gutiérrez said. "Illegal immigrants have to make quick decisions with not enough information and no counsel. We asked ICE to grant her bail, but it was too late."

González Gutiérrez said the focus of the case should have been "on Maria as a victim of domestic violence, instead of deporting her."

The U.S. government has issued 10,000 U visas to immigrants who are crime victims or witnesses, said U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services spokeswoman Chris Rhatigan. "It allows them authorization to work, and eventually apply for a green card."

But if an alleged victim of domestic violence is determined to be the aggressor, that could eliminate them as a U visa candidate, said ICE press secretary Kelly Nantel.

González Gutiérrez said Perez-Rivera's priority is to be reunited with her kids.

"She has two options," he said. "To try to come back into the U.S., pay a huge amount of money to a smuggler and run a much greater risk going through the desert, or get her kids to Mexico."

The consulate is trying to get permission from the fathers of both of Perez-Rivera's children to grant them Mexican passports and fly them to Mexico with a consular official, González Gutiérrez said.

Perez-Rivera wants her sister Ana to bring her kids to Mexico.

"She didn't want me to call the cops," her sister said. "But I don't regret making the call even though she's not here. She might have ended up in the hospital, or gotten killed."

http://www.sacbee.com/2010/11/02/3151148/deported-mexicans-leave-two-small.html#ixzz14PeRRZso

Families face wrenching decisions when immigrant parents deported

By Jennifer Gaie Hellum of The Cronkite News Service
The Tuscon Sentinel
August 30, 2010

PHOENIX – Bonnie Delgado and her two children are Americans living in Mexico because of love, family unity and a fateful border crossing 20 years ago by her Mexican husband, Tolmec Sandoval.

Another couple, John and Anna, met while working at a factory in the Midwest. They got married when Anna, an illegal immigrant from Mexico, found out she was pregnant. They now have three elementary-school aged children born in the U.S., citizens like their father. To stay with her family, Anna endures a life in the shadows.

The two families' experiences dispel the myth that marrying an American and having children who are U.S. citizens ensures legal residence in this country for a foreign spouse. Both families found the pursuit of legal immigration expensive, difficult to navigate and ultimately devastating.

Tolmec was told he will never be allowed to enter the U.S. Anna lost her bid because of a paperwork technicality and was ordered deported. Both couples and their children consequently faced the painful decision of whether to abide the visa denials and live outside the country or to stay in the U.S. illegally. One family chose to remain in the U.S.; the other chose to live in Mexico.

While these two family units have managed to remain together, large numbers of families that include U.S. citizens are being severely impacted by enforcement of immigration laws. A 2006 Pew Hispanic Center study reported "there are 6.6 million families in the U.S. in which either the head of the family or the spouse was unauthorized. These unauthorized families contained 14.6 million persons."

According to the Department of Homeland Security's (DHS) Office of the Inspector General (OIG) report from January 2009, over 100,000 illegal immigrant parents of U.S.-born children were deported from 1998 to 2007.

What happened to their children? No one knows for sure. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) officials do not collect data on how many U.S.-born children these parents have or whether the children stay in the U.S. when the parents are deported. The OIG report recommended that ICE review the feasibility of establishing procedures to document the number of American children displaced by a parent's deportation.

Although so far no change of policy has been implemented, Vincent Picard, ICE's public affairs officer in Phoenix, said in an email that ICE has initiated the feasibility study and expects it to be completed soon. According to Picard, ICE has determined that the system changes are feasible and is working to meet the deadline. "ICE's fiscal year 2010 appropriations bill stated "ICE is directed to begin collecting data on the deportation of parents of U.S.-born children no later than July 1, 2010, and to provide the data at least semi-annually to the Committees and the Office of Immigration Statistics."

Deportations happen to families in Arizona every day. But the issue becomes more complex when the deportees' families are of mixed-status—some with citizenship, some with visas and some here illegally. When a parent is denied a visa or deported, the stress is enormous—leaving youngsters to care for the younger and families to decide whether to leave jobs and schools in the name of family unity. It can lead to marital problems as well as mental health issues for parents and their children.

On any given day, Crockett Elementary School administrator Tammy Tusek deals with issues of deportation and immigration status, as students worry about family members and their own futures. Most of her students are from immigrant families, she says, estimating that about 60% of the student body have mixed-status families. She says the deportations usually are a result of "a traffic violation, day-to-day things—not a drug bust."

A May 2006 report from the Pew Hispanic Center stated "nearly two-thirds (64%) of the children living in unauthorized families are U.S. citizens by birth, an estimated 3.1 million children in 2005."

For these children, removals of family members are commonplace. "There was a former student, and I asked how his brother was," Tusek recalls. "He said he had been deported. This was just a casual conversation by the swings."

Tusek says the students at Crockett, where she has worked for 10 years, generally are aware of immigration issues and see them as part of life. "We did see a lot of anxiety when employer sanctions went through. (Sheriff Joe Arpaio's) sweeps really increased in our neighborhood. Kids would tell me that the police had been on their streets."

The teachers at this Phoenix elementary school see how anxiety affects performance when a child knows a parent—usually the dad—is getting deported and the mom doesn't have a job. "The anxiety is familial; it's not about the individual's status," says Tusek. "Often separation from the family is not an option, so the child knows he could have to go, too."

Jennifer Allen is the executive director of Border Action Network, a membership-based community-organizing network based in Tucson. Among their 12 human rights-oriented guiding principles is family unification.

"The group tries to educate the public that the immigrant family is not "monolithic," in that 'family' oftentimes is comprised of a variety of statuses: undocumented immigrant, legal immigrant, citizen and visa-overstayer," says Allen. "The notion of fixing the problem by rounding up and deporting them is absurd, given what families look like in reality."

In addition to local awareness campaigns, the organization focuses its energy at the state legislative level trying to fend off efforts to deport undocumented immigrants and split families.

"We also work on building relationships with local officials and legislators, urge them to not treat them like they are criminals," says Allen. "Within Arizona, we do a lot of work around how to prepare people for the possibility of having their status challenged, minimize effects of deportation and advocate to keep families here legally and safely."

Sometimes both parents get deported and kids have to move. At Crockett Elementary, the staff and the families tend to handle these realities in a matter-of-fact manner. "Sometimes parents come and withdraw them. They'll just tell the front office that they've been deported," says Tusek.

But other times the teachers are not told about a deportation and have to rely on their instincts to determine when a child is suffering a loss. Tusek recalls how one family with six children was affected last fall by the deportation of a parent.

"This was a long-standing family at the school and we had a relationship with them. But we weren't aware of it. Four of the siblings, who typically performed 'at level', had become withdrawn. The teachers were talking and we realized that the girls' grades were slipping."

Others teachers noticed the girls' charismatic, somewhat mischievous brother also appeared withdrawn. Eventually the school called in the children's mother, who told Tusek she hadn't noticed a change in her children's demeanors. "The translator I work with told her we're just trying to see if there's something we could do to help. She finally said their dad had been deported and 'if I can't find a job, we're going to have to move back.'"

Tusek referred the kids to the school counselor immediately and found out that the kids had been instructed by their mother not to discuss what had happened to their dad. Within a week or two, the teachers were able to engage the girls and their brother in conversations about what happened.

She says it's interesting that the authorities see deportation as the solution, telling the story of a mother who came in to say her children's father was being deported. "The father left his wife and six kids and was back in six days."

Bonnie and Tolmec, on the other hand, aren't willing to live apart or with the upheaval and anxiety that would come from Tolmec's being undocumented in the U.S. They instead have chosen family unity and legal immigration status for Bonnie and the kids in Mexico. The decision nonetheless has been a heart-wrenching one. Bonnie grieves that her U.S.-citizen children might never know the American Dream.

The couple met while Bonnie was on a study abroad program in Tijuana. They fell in love, got married in San Diego in 1999 and returned to Mexico where Tolmec worked as an English teacher at the University of Baja California at Tijuana. They soon applied for Tolmec to legally immigrate into the U.S., only to find that a careless border crossing with a friend as a young man would lead to his permanent ban from entering the U.S.

When Tolmec was 21, he and a friend decided to travel to San Diego for a Padres baseball game. Tolmec used his daily border crosser visa. According to Delgado, her husband's friend claimed he was a U.S. citizen (which is not uncommon in border towns where Mexican mothers often cross to give birth). The border agents discovered he, in fact, was Mexican. They impounded Tolmec's car and denied his visa for one year. There were no formal proceedings following the incident and Tolmec later obtained subsequent visas.

When Bonnie filled out the application for her husband's spousal visa application in 2003, Tolmec never mentioned the 1990 incident at the border. "He didn't think to mention it," says Delgado. "It had happened so long ago, and he had gotten subsequent visas."

Officials at the embassy in Ciudad Juarez caught the omission. They said the border-crossing incident had been reclassified as human smuggling and that the failure to report it on the visa application constituted an unpardonable felony. Bonnie's petition was denied. As a result, Tolmec will never be allowed to enter the U.S.

Delgado's unsuccessful application process took ten years and cost thousands of dollars in application and legal fees. The process usually involves many forms and fees, including forms for "alien relatives" as fiancées or as spouses, for mandatory medical exams and for proof of financial support. (If documents are sent to the incorrect processing office, the application is automatically denied and fees lost.)

She remains angry at what she sees as an injustice denying law-abiding citizens their right to live in their country. "You have no idea how many times people have offered to smuggle him into this country," says Delgado. "But instead we tried to do the right thing, and now he's being punished again after already paying the penalty for it. What's most frustrating is how oblivious they are to the emotional and financial distress they bring upon my children and myself."

During the application process, Bonnie's attorney advised her to move to the U.S. with her children as a good-faith gesture demonstrating her desire to live here. She worked as a substitute teacher in Cave Creek, but her son became clinically depressed by the separation from his father. They returned to Mexico the following year. "It's been really tough," she says. "They miss Cave Creek a lot. They miss their friends and their teachers. They miss the little things, like Girl Scouts and Boy Scouts and having a nice park down the street."

Every weekday, she leaves her home at 5:30 a.m. and crosses the border on foot from Tijuana to work part-time as a secretary at a tile showroom outside of San Diego. (She earns more than she did teaching full-time at a private school in Tijuana.) She returns home by 1:30 p.m. and homeschools her children in English, while her husband teaches at the Instituto Sandel, an independent English school he owns. Each time she crosses, Bonnie is haunted by the consequences of her husband's mistake.

Delgado recently applied to DHS's Secure Electronic Network for Travelers Rapid Inspection (SENTRI) program, which facilitates border crossings for low-risk crossers. Although the card, part of the Trusted Traveler Program, would have reduced her border-crossing time by as much as 90%, says Delgado, she was denied access because of her husband's inadmissibility. "I argued that I'm a U.S. citizen, with no criminal background, not even a parking ticket, that I cross by foot. So how could I possibly smuggle anyone? I have a clean record, yet the official said I'm not 'low risk' because of my husband's record."

Like Bonnie and Tolmec, John and Anna had every intention of pursuing legal status through the appropriate government channels and every expectation that they would receive it. In the end, their denial left them frustrated and angry

The couple met while working together at a factory where John was a shop foreman and Anna was an operator. When she became pregnant, they got married and began the visa application process.

John, a military veteran, says he wanted to do the right thing. "We did a lot of stuff to try and do it the right way." Anna had come to the U.S. by car without papers, so John set about getting her a legitimate U.S. social security number and a valid driver's license for tax purposes. She obtained work authorization papers and underwent fingerprinting each time they moved to a new state, including Arizona.

By the time he and Anna had their final interview, she was pregnant with their third son. Certain her application would be approved, they had even purchased tickets for the family to go to Mexico for Christmas to meet Anna's parents, who she had not seen in over ten years. Her application's denial delivered a crushing end to their plans.

"I didn't know it was going to go this way," says John. "Married? With three children? For someone to sit across the desk from a pregnant woman, with no compassion, and deny her, based on someone filing the wrong paperwork that had expired?" Apparently, someone at the agency John had hired used an application that had since been revised. As John describes it, the young woman on the other side of the desk coldly saw the error as grounds for denial.

John believes that if he hadn't been there with Anna that day and she hadn't been pregnant, the authorities would have taken her to a deportation cell. Instead, they were told they would receive a letter telling them when she would have to leave. They never received the papers.

Five years and $5,000 later, John's frustration with the process remains fresh. "It's real complicated to do it without a lawyer. So you put yourself in a situation where (the lawyers) say they're going to help you, but they didn't look at the paperwork when they filed it."

Instead of returning to Mexico without her children and trusting that it would take only six to twelve months to receive legal documents, Anna has chosen a more risky, and more isolated, path. She remains in the States with John and her children but no longer works and must keep a low profile in their community. There's been no contact from immigration authorities nor close calls with local law enforcement, but nonetheless she lives in fear. As John puts it, "She feels like she's in a prison."

John says the boys don't know anything about their mother's immigration status. The family lives in a predominantly Mexican neighborhood, but they don't have sweeps like in Arizona. Still, the strain on the family from her not being able to work affects them all. "It's incredibly stressful," says John. "We have arguments every other week about her being stuck in the house."

John sounds resigned to the idea of Anna having to leave to get legal status, suggesting they'll eventually try to do what they must to get her status changed. They've thought about her taking the kids to Mexico over summer break some year and hoping for speedy processing, but that would require buying passports and securing notarized documents to allow Anna to take her U.S.-citizen children across the border. Instead John, most likely, would have to take the boys to Mexico himself. The considerable expense, complicated logistics and uncertain outcome of such a plan are reasons enough to make it unlikely to happen any time soon.

Maurice Goldman is an immigration attorney in Tucson, AZ, who focuses his practice on issues related to U.S. immigration laws. He advocates abolishing re-entry penalties, including the 3-year and 10-year bans on re-entering the U.S after deportation.

"I see these families get torn apart," says Goldman. "The penalties are nonsensical because they don't really deter a person from being here illegally or unlawfully. They basically force a person to live here in the shadows, without any documentation, and with the fear that if they go back, they may not be able to come back and be with their loved ones. I just think that's completely unfair. And I can understand making the person pay a penalty because they did somehow break a law, but when you have a family and you have a U.S. citizen or a permanent-resident spouse or a child that's going to be potentially separated from their mother or their father, you know, it's kind of sad to see. Very sad, actually."

Arizona Congressmen Ed Pastor and Raul Grijalva have co-sponsored legislation that would allow immigration judges flexibility when determining whether illegal immigrant parents of U.S.-citizen children should be removed from the U.S. Although previous legislation has died in committee in earlier efforts, a similar provision has be included in a comprehensive immigration reform proposal pending in Congress.

Others in Congress would like to see the repeal of the 14th amendment, which grants citizenship to all persons born in the U.S. In the wake of Arizona governor Jan Brewer's recent signing of the controversial immigration bill SB 1070, the debate over citizenship has gained intensity. When asked at a recent Tea Party rally in San Diego if he would support deportation of U.S.-born children of illegal immigrants, Rep. Duncan Hunter (R-Alpine) of California responded, "I would have to, yes… We simply cannot afford what we're doing right now." He added, "It takes more than just walking across the border to become an American citizen. It's what's in our souls…"

Even when parents of U.S-born children succeed in securing legal status, anxiety can remain for the non-citizen spouse. U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services data reports that roughly 21,000 Arizona residents received green cards in 2009.

Suzette Acosta, a pre-school director, and her husband Jose, an executive chef, grew up together in Nogales, Sonora. Jose became a U.S. citizen in his twenties when a pastor encouraged a friend and him to apply for citizenship. He attended college in Tucson; Suzette went to college in Mexico. Some years later they began dating, and in 1999 Jose proposed to Suzette. The following year he applied for a fiancée visa through the Tucson immigration office. Suzette eventually obtained permanent residence (also known as "green card") status in 2002.

They now have four children, all of whom are U.S. citizens, and Suzette very much wants to become a citizen. According to DHS, most legal permanent residents who are at least 18 years of age are eligible to apply for citizenship after meeting certain requirements, including five years of lawful permanent residency in the United States and successful completion of English language, civics and history tests.

Suzette says the biggest obstacle for her is the cost. "It cost us $2,500-3,000 at the time for my green card. At this point, we don't have a lot of money, with daycare costs and a house. We have good jobs, but there's not much money left over."

Instead, she has incorporated the realities of her family's mixed status into their life. Each time her mother takes Suzette's children to Nogales for a visit, Suzette dutifully gets the notarized paperwork required to allow her mother to take the kids to and from Mexico, as required by Mexican law. She also always tells the truth at the border about her immigration status and speaks openly about it in front of her children.

Despite having permanent residency, she still has anxiety when she travels because of concerns about the authority of individual border patrol agents. "Any time we cross the border, there could be any reason someone could take my residency card from me, and it would be all over. It's very sad because it's supposed to be that if you followed the procedures (to get documents), you're fine. But every time you're treated at the will of the person at the border. We're always at the mercy of who's at the border."

Suzette describes an unsettling incident that happened a year after she had gotten a pre-residency card permit. "I'm supposed to get out of the car, and they are supposed to sign my paper. The woman at the border didn't know what the permit was, and she wanted to take the paperwork from me. I said, 'Call the office in Tucson so you can learn about it.' I wasn't going to let her take it."

When asked what Jose and she would do if she somehow lost her legal status, Suzette replies, "We always talk about it. If that happened, we'd go back (to Mexico) and start over."

But despite the anxiety from not yet being a citizen, Suzette says they feel blessed that they aren't like other families who have a parent here illegally. "You have no idea, even the difference between their life and ours."

This package was produced by students in Arizona State University’s Walter Cronkite School of Journalism and Mass Communication under the direction of Rick Rodriguez, Carnegie Professor specializing in Latino and transnational news coverage.

http://www.tucsonsentinel.com/local/report/083010_divided_families

Broken System, Broken Families

By Marcelo M. Suarez-Orozco and Carola Suarez-Orozco
The Huffington Post
July 19, 2010

As we enter the second decade of the 21st century the lives of well over a billion people are shaped by the experience of migration: 214 million as transnational migrants, approximately 740 million as internal migrants, and millions more as immediate relatives left behind.

While mass migration is reshaping economies and societies the world over, many facets of immigration remain overlooked, misunderstood, or neglected. The dominant approaches to the scholarly study of mass migration tend to privilege labor factors, economic variables, demographic forces, and in recent years, border controls, undocumented immigration, and immigration qua security. These approaches have generated some scholarly consensus yet important aspects of mass migration remain unexplored. Labor and economic variables are powerful vectors structuring mass migration but reducing migration to workers mechanically summoned and dismissed at the whim of the business cycle profoundly neglects one of the more complex and defining issues of our times. Immigration is never solely about workers -- it is about human beings.

The most fundamental and indivisible unit of migration is the family -- variously conceived and structured in different regions of the world. While at the manifest level immigration is often driven by labor, demographic, and economic variables at the latent level immigration's enduring root is the family. Immigration is an ethical act of and for the family. Immigration typically starts with the family and family bonds sustain it. Immigration will profoundly change families as well as the societies in which immigrants settle.

The children of immigrants are the fruit borne of immigration. These children are a fast-growing sector of the child and youth population in nearly every immigration-dependent country today including Australia, Canada, Germany, Italy, the Netherlands, Spain, and Sweden. In the United States, the country with the largest number of immigrants in the world, almost one quarter of all youth are of immigrant origin (16 million in 2010) and it is projected that by 2040 over a third of all children will be growing up in immigrant households.

Immigration policy is thoroughly disconnected from demographic realities, the rights of families, the putative interests of business and labor, and from our values as a nation of immigrants. The unprecedented crisis over mass unauthorized immigration (the U.S. has less than five percent of the world's population, but approximately 20 percent of all unauthorized migrants on earth) is embodied in the lives of the estimated 11 to 12 million U. S. immigrants without papers. They unmask a policy architecture that is at once misaligned with the realities of global migration and plagued by unclear, contradictory, and unrealistic objectives. The result is an immigration system largely irrelevant to any rational labor market objectives, the integrity of the family, the vicissitudes of labor and business, and the requirements of citizenship and social cohesion in the 21st Century.

"Broken" is the association that first comes to mind to the word immigration. Talk of immigration is talk of broken borders, broken laws, broken families, broken communities, and broken identities.

What are the consequences of this systemic wreckage on the lives of our children? Last, week, on Thursday July 15, 2010, Carola Suárez-Orozco testified on behalf of the American Psychological Association before an ad hoc hearing of the U. S. House of Representatives sponsored by Congressman Raúl Grijalva -- "In the Best Interest of Our Children: Our Immigration Enforcement Policy." She presented testimony alongside U.S. citizen children of immigrants. One who spoke of his daily fears that as his immigrant parents left the house each morning he may never see them again. Another testified of the real nightmare of being woken in the middle of the night to learn that her mother had been swept away in an ICE raid -- more than a year latter the child and her three siblings have not seen their mother again. Below is the transcript of Dr. Carola Suárez-Orozco's testimony.

Congressman Grijalva and members of Congress, please allow me to express appreciation for the opportunity to testify on behalf of the 152,000 members and affiliates of the American Psychological Association (APA) regarding the impact of immigration enforcement activities on children and families. My name is Dr. Carola Suárez-Orozco. I am a Professor of Applied Psychology and Co-Director of Immigration Studies at New York University. My entire professional career has been dedicated to examining the effects of immigration on families and children. I have conducted many studies on the experience of immigration for children and adolescents and am the author of several books and numerous articles on the topic.

APA is the world's largest organization representing the field of psychology and has a long-standing commitment to promoting the optimal development and education of children and adolescents. Our membership includes researchers, practitioners, and educators whose work has played a pivotal role in our society's understanding of the cognitive, social, and emotional development of children.

Psychologists have a unique and important perspective to offer to the immigration discussion in several domains. We can shed light on the developmental implications for children growing up in uncertainty, in stigmatized households, and without a sense of being able to participate in the fabric of the nation in which they are being raised. We also can call attention to the unintended consequences of immigration policies for children and families, as well as vulnerable populations, including previously traumatized refugees and asylum seekers. Lastly, we can share knowledge about and advocate for the mental and behavioral health needs of immigrant families and children. APA's commitment to these issues is exemplified by our resolution on Immigrant Children, Youth, and Families (1998).

Let me begin by briefly providing some data to help place this issue in perspective. Immigrant youth are the fastest growing child population in the U.S. Currently, 16 million children have at least one parent who is an immigrant. While today nearly 23% of youth under the age of 18 have immigrant parents, by 2030, it is projected that this will have grown to 30%. Notably, the majority of these youth are U.S. citizens.

Nationwide, approximately 5 million children currently have at least one undocumented parent, though many of these children are U.S. citizens. There are an estimated 1.7 million undocumented children, many of whom have been living in this country most of their lives and know no other homeland. They have been educated here and may speak (but barely read or write) in their parents' native language. Growing up in American neighborhoods and attending American schools, these children in their hearts often feel themselves to be part of the American community. Complicating matters further, many children grow up in what are referred to as "mixed-status families," in which some family members are citizens, legal residents, or in the process of regularizing their status, while others remain undocumented.

Last year, well over 380,000 individuals were deported, and over 550,000 more were stopped and sent back at the border. This trend is slated to continue as reported in the 2009 U.S. Department of Homeland Security Annual Financial Report, which states that Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) " will strive to achieve a similar or higher level of removals for FY 2010." On a daily basis, more than 32,000 people who are not U.S. citizens are detained in county jails, privately run prisons, and federal facilities. The journey of many immigrants is characterized by trauma prior to, during, and following migration, dislocations, and family separations. The detention experience can often reactivate memories of trauma among refugees, asylum seekers, and immigrants and can adversely affect psychological and social well-being.

Unfortunately, the psychological consequences of these deportations and detentions on immediate family members and vulnerable children are often overlooked. A February 2010 report by the Urban Institute, entitled Facing our Future: Children in the Aftermath of Immigration Enforcement, documents the effects of these traumas on the children. The report indicates that the vast majority of children whose parents were detained in ICE raids in the workplace and in the home exhibited multiple behavioral changes in the aftermath of parental detention, including anxiety, frequent crying, changes in eating and sleeping patterns, withdrawal, and anger. Such behavioral changes were documented both two to three months after the arrest, as well as at a nine-month follow-up. Disturbingly, the children also experienced dramatic increases in housing instability and food insecurity, which are both dimensions of basic well-being.

My own research with psychologist colleagues, as well as research conducted by a number of sociologists, demonstrates that high proportions of our nation's immigrant children are undergoing lengthy periods of separation from their parents. In a study in which I recruited 400 immigrant adolescents originating from a number of Central American nations, China, the Dominican Republic, Haiti, and Mexico, data indicate that more than three-quarters of the youth had been separated from one or both parents for a period of six months to 10 years. For children who had spent half of their childhood away from their biological parent, they were migrating not only to a new country but to a new family. As one Haitian teenager reported: "I didn't know who I was going to live with or how my life was going to be. I knew of my father, but I did not know him." Not surprisingly, there are often psychological consequences and complications associated with these long separations and the subsequent reunifications. Our data suggest that the longer the parent-child separation, the greater the reported symptoms of anxiety and depression among the children.

Our study examined the implications of family separations that were in part caused by immigration policies that slowed the process of children joining parents who had migrated ahead. These data suggest that having parents deported and abruptly separated from their children may result in negative mental health implications. Particularly challenging are cases involving "mixed status families," where citizen children of immigrants experience the untenable position of choosing between love of parents and love of country. We know that over 100,000 citizen children have had their parents deported in the last 10 years alone. It is imperative that policymakers keep the needs of children in mind as our nation moves forward in reforming what President Obama referred to as our "broken immigration system," particularly as it contributes to family separations. Family unification and reunification should be an important part of our immigration policy.

While awaiting federal immigration reform, a number of states and localities are developing and implementing their own laws and regulations to address the immigration crisis, many of which may pose negative psychological consequences. According to the National Conference of State Legislatures, during the first three months of 2010 alone, legislators in 45 states introduced 1,180 bills and resolutions relating to immigration. Many of these initiatives have raised concerns regarding the potential for discrimination and racial profiling. APA and the psychology community have a long history of work to eliminate prejudice and discrimination in all forms. Specifically, APA adopted a resolution against Racial/Ethnic Profiling and Other Racial/Ethnic Disparities in Law and Security Enforcement Activities (2001). We are deeply concerned about problems that may arise in the implementation of such policies. Who will get asked for their legal papers? What cluster of perceptions and stereotypes will sort people into this amorphous category of suspected undocumented immigrants? The Urban Institute Report that I referred to earlier found that, disturbingly, children's fears following parental detention were diffused to anyone in uniform. Thus, early on in immigrant children's development, figures of authority could become not people to trust and look up to but rather people who may cause harm to their parents or themselves.

A climate of racial profiling and discrimination has negative implications for acculturation, social belongingness, and the civic engagement of the next generation of immigrant youth. Being the subject of such divisive stereotyping is likely to further inequality and lead to numerous adverse cognitive, affective, motivational, and behavioral effects that are well documented in our APA Resolution on Prejudice, Stereotypes, and Discrimination (2006) (PDF, 102KB).

I would like to provide a few recommendations to assist you as you undertake the important task of reforming our federal immigration policies. First, federal policies must consider the mental and behavioral health of immigrant children and their families. Specifically, APA urges Congress to make the necessary reforms to discourage the involuntary separation of children from their parents, families, and/or caregivers in immigration proceedings. As I previously mentioned, research indicates that the emotional and sometimes physical traumas associated with shortsighted and overreaching immigration policies can have a lasting impact on children and adolescents. Immigration enforcement policies should take into account the importance of the family unit and also the physical and emotional well-being of children and adolescents.

Next, detention policies must promote the humane treatment of immigrant children and their families. Accordingly, APA supports the Secure and Safe Detention and Asylum Act (S. 1594), which would establish new detention, oversight, and training standards that take into account the physical and mental health needs of detainees. Specifically, this legislation would authorize access to medical and psychological care and family-oriented facilities geared towards reducing the stress experienced by immigrant children. Finally, this bill seeks to establish criteria to better serve the unique needs of potentially vulnerable detainees, including individuals with severe mental disorders, asylum seekers, victims of torture and trafficking, families with children, non-English speakers, and those with special religious, cultural, or spiritual considerations. Such provisions aimed at safeguarding the mental and behavioral health of immigrant children and other vulnerable populations should be included in any immigration reform effort Congress undertakes.

APA's President-elect, Melba Vasquez, PhD, who will be the first Latina president in our organization's 118-year history, recently announced her plans to form an APA Presidential Task Force to review the psychological literature on the experience of immigration and its impact on society. APA recognizes the need for psychologists and the field of psychology to play a significant role in helping society and policymakers to better understand the human side of the immigration debate, especially as it pertains to the welfare of children and families. We look forward to sharing the work of the APA Task Force with you when its efforts are completed.

In closing, APA and the psychology community stand ready to work with Congress and all stakeholders to enact humane federal immigration reform that takes into account the mental and behavioral health needs of children and families.

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/marcelo-m-suarezorozco-and-carola-suarezorozco/broken-system-broken-fami_b_650395.html

Franken introduces bill to aid children of ICE raids

By Andy Birkey
The Minnesota Independent
6/24/10

Sen. Al Franken introduced legislation Tuesday to ensure that the children of undocumented workers caught up in Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) raids are not left abandoned. In a press release about the bill, Franken and fellow sponsor Sen. Herb Kohl of Wisconsin, offered several stories from Minnesota raids where children were left to fend for themselves — at times for a week or more — after their parents were arrested.

“One second-grader in Worthington came home that night to find his two-year old brother alone and his mother and father missing,” the senators wrote. “For the next week, the second-grader stayed home to care for his brother while his grandmother traveled to Worthington to meet them.”

Franken said that those children are often U.S. citizens and deserve to be looked after.

“Four million U.S. citizen children in our country have at least one undocumented immigrant parent,” said Franken. “Forty-thousand of those children live in Minnesota. They should not have to live in fear that one day their parents will simply not come home. They deserve much better than being abandoned without explanation.”

The HELP Separated Children Act would beef up a response system for state agencies in the event of a raid, to allow nonprofits to locate at-risk children, to give detainees confidential ways to communicate and make arrangements for their children and to ban the use of children’s testimony in ICE interrogations. It also directs ICE to look out for the best interests of children.


http://minnesotaindependent.com/60599/franken-introduces-bill-to-aid-children-of-ice-raids

Arizona's Next Immigration Target: Children of Illegals

By Adam Klawonn / Phoenix
Time
Friday, Jun. 11, 2010

Anchor babies isn't a very endearing term, but in Arizona those are the words being used to tag children born in the U.S. to illegal immigrants. While not new, the term is increasingly part of the local vernacular because the primary authors of the nation's toughest and most controversial immigration law are targeting these tots — the legal weights that anchor many undocumented aliens in the U.S. — for their next move.

Buoyed by recent public opinion polls suggesting they're on the right track with illegal immigration, Arizona Republicans will likely introduce legislation this fall that would deny birth certificates to children born in Arizona — and thus American citizens according to the U.S. Constitution — to parents who are not legal U.S. citizens. The law largely is the brainchild of state senator Russell Pearce, a Republican whose suburban district, Mesa, is considered the conservative bastion of the Phoenix political scene. He is a leading architect of the Arizona law that sparked outrage throughout the country: Senate Bill 1070, which allows law-enforcement officers to ask about someone's immigration status during a traffic stop, detainment or arrest if reasonable suspicion exists — things like poor English skills, acting nervous or avoiding eye contact during a traffic stop. (See "The Battle for Arizona: Will a Border Crackdown Work?")

But the likely new bill is for the kids. While SB1070 essentially requires of-age migrants to have the proper citizenship paperwork, the potential "anchor baby" bill blocks the next generation from ever being able to obtain it. The idea is to make the citizenship process so difficult that illegal immigrants pull up the anchor and leave. (See TIME's photo-essay "The Border Fence Rises in the Southwest.")

The question is whether that would violate the U.S. Constitution. The 14th Amendment states that "All persons, born or naturalized in the United States, and subject to the jurisdiction thereof, are citizens of the United States. No state shall make or enforce any law which shall abridge the privileges or immunities of citizens of the United States." It was intended to provide citizenship for freed slaves and served as a final answer to the Dred Scott case, cementing the federal government's control over citizenship. (Comment on this story.)

But that was 1868. Today, Pearce says, the 14th Amendment has been "hijacked" by illegal immigrants. "They use it as a wedge," he says. "This is an orchestrated effort by them to come here and have children to gain access to the great welfare state we've created." Pearce says he is aware of the constitutional issues involved with the bill and vows to introduce it nevertheless. "We will write it right." He and other Republicans in the red state Arizona point to popular sympathy: 58% of Americans polled by Rasmussen think illegal immigrants whose children are born in the U.S. should not receive citizenship; support for that stance is 76% among Republicans.

Those who oppose the bill say it would lead to more discrimination and divide the community. Among them is Phoenix resident Susan Vie, who is leading a citizen group that's behind an opposing ballot initiative. She moved to the U.S. 30 years ago from Argentina, became a naturalized citizen and now works as a client-relations representative for a vaccine company. "I see a lot of hate and racism behind it," Vie says. "Consequently, I believe it will create — and it's creating it now — a separation in our society." She adds, "When people look at me, they will think, 'Is she legal or illegal?' I can already feel it right now." Vie's citizen initiative would prohibit SB1070 from taking effect and place a three-year moratorium on all related laws — including the anchor-baby bill — to buy more time for federal immigration reform. Her group is racing to collect 153,365 signatures by July 1 to qualify for the Nov. 2 general election.

Both sides expect the anchor-baby bill to end up before the U.S. Supreme Court before it is enacted. "I think it would be struck down as facially unconstitutional. I can't imagine a federal judge saying this would be O.K.," says Dan Barr, a longtime Phoenix lawyer and constitutional litigator. Potentially joining the anchor-baby bill at the Supreme Court may be SB1070, which Republican Arizona Governor Jan Brewer signed into law in April. It is set to take effect July 29, but at least five courtroom challenges have been filed against it. Pearce says he will win them all.

http://www.time.com/time/nation/article/0,8599,1996064,00.html

New Study: 88,000 U.S. Citizen Children Lost Parent to Deportation

March 31, 2010

The United States government deported the lawful immigrant parents of nearly 88,000 citizen children between 1997 and 2007, most for relatively minor crimes, according to a new report released today by the University of California, Davis, and University of California, Berkeley, law schools. The deportations often resulted in psychological harm, behavioral changes and problems in school for the children left behind.

The report, "In the Child’s Best Interest?" is based on analysis of data provided by the U.S. Department of Homeland Security, interviews with affected families and comparisons of U.S. and international human rights standards. The study was a joint project of the Immigration Law Clinic at the UC Davis School of Law, and the International Human Rights Law Clinic and the Chief Justice Earl Warren Institute on Race, Ethnicity and Diversity at the UC Berkeley School of Law. It is available on the Web at http://www.law.ucdavis.edu/news/images/childsbestinterest.pdf.

Drastic revisions to U.S. immigration laws in 1996 led to large numbers of deported lawful permanent residents (green card holders), who now make up nearly 10 percent of immigrants deported from the U.S., according to the report. More than 68 percent of the deported green card holders were deported for minor crimes, including driving under the influence, simple assault and nonviolent drug offenses, it found.

"It is often the children in these families who suffer the most," said Raha Jorjani, a clinical professor of law at UC Davis and supervising attorney for the UC Davis Immigration Law Clinic. "This nation should take into consideration the impact on families of uprooting individuals with such strong ties to the U.S.”

Current immigration laws severely restrict the ability of judges to consider the impact of deportation on children, the report notes. The authors recommend restoring judicial discretion in all cases involving the deportation of lawful permanent residents with U.S. citizen children.

“As Congress considers immigration reform, it’s time to focus on how the current system tears apart families and threatens the health and education of tens of thousands of children,” said Aarti Kohli, director of immigration policy at Berkeley Law’s Warren Institute. “This report makes a strong case for restoring judicial discretion so immigration judges can weigh the best interests of children when deciding whether to deport a parent.”

The report examined deportation records between April 1997 and August 2007. The nearly 88,000 legal residents who were deported during this decade had lived in the U.S. an average of 10 years, and more than half had at least one child living at home, the study found. About half of the children were under age 5 when their parent was deported.

In 1996, Congress also significantly broadened the category of crimes considered an “aggravated felony,” the report notes. Although this category initially included only the most serious offenses, it now includes nonviolent theft and drug offenses, forgery and other minor offenses, many of which may not be felonies under criminal law. Lawful permanent residents convicted of an aggravated felony are now subject to mandatory deportation and other severe immigration consequences.

“Parents who are deported on the basis of criminal convictions are being punished twice for the same mistakes,” Jorjani said. “Even after successfully completing their criminal sentences, they are subject to penalties within the immigration system — and risk losing their families."

Families interviewed for the study reported negative health impacts, such as increased depression, sleeplessness and anxiety. Children also reported plummeting grades, increased behavioral problems and the urge to drop out of school to help support the family.

The study compares U.S. immigration policy to international standards that more adequately address potential family separations in deportation hearings.

“The rights to health and education are firmly entrenched in international human rights law, and nearly every major human rights treaty recognizes the need for special protection of children,” said Laurel Fletcher, director of the International Human Rights Law Clinic at the UC Berkeley School of Law. “The U.S. should consider revising its policy to mirror European human rights standards, which permit judges to balance a nation’s security interest with the best interests of the child when considering deporting a parent.”

"In the Child’s Best Interest?" makes a number of recommendations to U.S. policymakers, including:

•restoring judicial discretion in cases involving the deportation of lawful permanent residents who have U.S. citizen children;

•establishing clear judicial guidelines in these family deportation cases;

•reverting to the pre-1996 definition of “aggravated felony”;

•collecting data on U.S. citizen children of deported lawful immigrant parents to gain fuller understanding of impact of deportation laws.

Co-authors of the study include J.D. candidates and research analysts at UC Davis School of Law and UC Berkeley School of Law.

About the clinics

The Immigration Law Clinic at the UC Davis School of Law provides legal representation to indigent noncitizens in removal proceedings before U.S. Immigration Courts, the Board of Immigration Appeals, and federal courts, including the U.S. 9th Circuit Court of Appeals. The clinic provides this necessary service to Northern California’s low-income immigrant communities while enabling students to gain practical, real-world experience. Clinic students take on all major aspects of litigation, including interviewing clients and witnesses, preparing legal briefs, drafting pleadings and motions, and arguing complex legal issues. The clinic regularly conducts naturalization and other workshops in the community. Responding to the impact of increased collaboration between criminal and immigration enforcement agencies, the clinic has been at the forefront of indigent detention and deportation defense. For more information visit: http://www.law.ucdavis.edu/.

The International Human Rights Law Clinic at the UC Berkeley School of Law implements innovative human rights projects to advance the struggle for justice on behalf of individuals and marginalized communities through research, advocacy, and policy development. The clinic employs an interdisciplinary model that leverages the intellectual capital of the university to provide innovative solutions to emerging human rights issues and develops collaborative partnerships with researchers, scholars, and human rights activists worldwide. Students are integral to all phases of the clinic's work and acquire unparalleled experience employing strategies to address the most urgent human rights issues of our day. For more information visit: http://www.humanrightsclinic.org/.

The Chief Justice Earl Warren Institute on Race, Ethnicity and Diversity at the UC Berkeley School of Law is a multi-disciplinary, collaborative venture to produce research, policy reforms and curricular innovation on issues of racial and ethnic justice in California and the nation. The institute’s mission is to engage the most difficult topics in a wide range of legal and policy subject areas, providing valuable intellectual capital to public and private sector leaders, the media, and the general public, while advancing scholarly understanding. Central to its methods are concerted efforts to build bridges connecting research, civic action, and policy debate so that each informs the other, while preserving the independence, quality and credibility of the academic enterprise. For more information visit: http://www.warreninstitute.org/.

About UC Davis

For more than 100 years, UC Davis has engaged in teaching, research and public service that matter to California and transform the world. Located close to the state capital, UC Davis has 32,000 students, an annual research budget that exceeds $600 million, a comprehensive health system and 13 specialized research centers. The university offers interdisciplinary graduate study and more than 100 undergraduate majors in four colleges — Agricultural and Environmental Sciences, Biological Sciences, Engineering, and Letters and Science. It also houses six professional schools — Education, Law, Management, Medicine, Veterinary Medicine and the Betty Irene Moore School of Nursing.

http://www.news.ucdavis.edu/search/news_detail.lasso?id=9447