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Parents
face
tougher
rules to
get
immigrant
children
back
By
GISELA
SALOMON
and
CLAUDIA
TORRENS
APNews.com
MIAMI
(AP) —
Armando
Tabora
desperately
wants to
get his
teenage
daughter
out of
the
government
detention
facility
where
she has
been for
more
than
three
months.
He has
been
stymied
at every
turn.
The
Florida
landscaping
worker
took the
bold
step of
going to
a
government
office
to
submit
fingerprints
and
other
documents
required
for
immigrants
to get
their
children
out of
government
custody
— and
are now
being
shared
with
deportation
agents.
He was
then
told
that the
woman he
rents a
room
from
would
also
need to
submit
fingerprints,
something
she
refused
to do.
He then
sought
out
friends
who are
here
legally
to help
him out,
to no
avail.
“I
don’t
know
what to
do,”
said
Tabora,
an
immigrant
from
Honduras
who has
lived
more
than a
decade
in the
shadows
without
being
detected.
“My
daughter
is
desperate,
crying.
She
wants to
get out
of
there.”
The
drama of
parents
being
separated
from
their
children
at the
border
dominated
the
headlines
this
year,
but
thousands
of
immigrant
families
are
experiencing
a
similar
frustration:
the
increasing
hurdles
they
must
surmount
to take
custody
of sons,
daughters
and
relatives
who
crossed
the
border
on their
own.
The
Trump
administration
has
imposed
more
stringent
rules
and
vetting
for
family
members
to get
these
children
back as
part of
an
across-the-board
hardening
of
immigration
policy.
As a
result,
family
members
are
struggling
to
comply
with the
new
requirement,
keeping
children
in
detention
longer
and
helping
the
number
of
migrant
kids in
government
custody
soar to
the
highest
levels
ever.
Federal
officials
insist
the
policies
are
about
ensuring
the
safety
of
children.
More
than
12,000
children
are now
in
government
shelters,
compared
with
2,400 in
May
2017.
The
average
length
that
children
spend in
detention
has
increased
from 40
days in
fiscal
year
2016 to
59 in
fiscal
year
2018,
according
to
federal
data.
The
requirements
include
the
submission
of
fingerprints
by all
adults
in the
household
where a
migrant
child
will
live.
These
sponsors
— the
term the
U.S.
uses for
adults
who take
custody
of
immigrant
children
— are
also
subject
to more
background
checks,
proofs
of
income
and home
visits,
lawyers
say.
And
this
information
is now
be
shared
with
Immigration
and
Customs
Enforcement
—
something
that did
not
occur in
the
past.
ICE said
this
week
that the
agency
has
arrested
41
sponsors
since
the
agencies
started
sharing
information
in June.
Lawyers
and
advocates
say that
change
has had
a
chilling
effect
because
many
family
members
live in
the
country
illegally
and have
been
deterred
from
claiming
relatives
for fear
they
will be
deported.
“They
are
saying:
‘We are
going
after
the
people
trying
to take
care of
them
(children),’”
said Jen
Podkul,
director
of
policy
at Kids
in Need
of
Defense.
The
government
has long
required
families
to go
through
some
vetting
to serve
as
sponsors.
The
issue
has
become
more
prevalent
in the
last
five
years
when
tens of
thousands
of
unaccompanied
children
from El
Salvador,
Guatemala
and
Honduras
started
coming
across
the
border.
Since
October
2014,
the
federal
government
has
placed
more
than
150,000
unaccompanied
minors
with
parents
or other
adult
sponsors
who are
expected
to care
for the
children
and help
them
attend
school
while
they
seek
legal
status
in
immigration
court.
Under
Trump,
the
rules
have
been
toughened
in what
the
administration
says are
necessary
steps to
keep
children
from
ending
up in
the
homes of
people
with
criminal
records
and
other
issues
that
could
endanger
kids.
“If
somebody
is
unwilling
to claim
their
child
from
custody
because
they’re
concerned
about
their
own
immigration
status,
I think
that de
facto
calls
into
question
whether
they’re
an
adequate
sponsor
and
whether
we
should
be
releasing
the
child to
that
person,”
Steven
Wagner,
acting
assistant
secretary
of the
Department
of
Health
and
Human
Services’
Administration
for
Children
and
Families,
said
when the
policy
was
announced
in May.
The
issue of
sharing
information
with ICE
arises
because
children
and
adults
immigrants
are
handled
by
separate
federal
government
agencies.
Children
are in
the
custody
of the
Health
and
Human
Service
Department’s
Office
of
Refugee
Resettlement,
while
adults
are
handled
by ICE.
Until
the new
fingerprinting
policy
took
effect,
the
government
rarely
shared
such
information
with
immigration
officials
unless a
fingerprint
match
showed
that a
potential
sponsor
had a
particularly
alarming
record,
said
Holly
Cooper,
co-director
of the
Immigration
Law
Clinic
at the
University
of
California
Davis.
The
tougher
rules
have put
many
immigrants
in the
position
of doing
something
that
once
seemed
unthinkable:
turning
over
their
fingerprints
and
other
information
knowing
that
it’ll be
shared
with
ICE.
Marvin
Puerto
did just
that to
get
custody
of his
9-year-old
son,
Nahun.
Puerto
crossed
the
border
in 2014
and has
been
trying
to live
in
Missouri
in the
shadows
since
then. He
and his
wife,
Eilyn
Carbajal,
waited
two
months
to get
custody
of the
boy.
“I
did not
want to
do the
fingerprints,
but I
had no
choice”,
said the
29-year-old
construction
worker.
“Now
they
have all
my
information.
I feel
they are
going to
accuse
me of
smuggling
family
members.”
Workers
at The
Hispanic
Interest
Coalition
of
Alabama
say that
after
the
Office
of
Refugee
Resettlement
started
sharing
information
with ICE
in June,
two to
four
sponsors
a week
did not
show up
for
appointments
and a
few who
did
visit
refused
to get
fingerprinted.
After
the New
York
Civil
Liberties
Union
sued in
February
on
behalf
of a
detained
Salvadoran
teen and
his
mother,
the
government
was
required
to
release
case
files on
45
children
held
under
similar
circumstances.
In about
half a
dozen of
those
cases,
reluctance
to
provide
fingerprints
was a
factor
in
holding
up
children’s
release,
forcing
some
sponsors
to
scramble
for
another
place to
live and
others
to drop
out of
the
application
process,
the
NYCLU
said.
If
unaccompanied
minors
are not
placed
with
sponsors
they can
end up
in a
federal
foster
care
program.
Some
could be
deported
to the
same
dangers
from
which
they
fled.
Many
of the
parents
and
other
relatives
trying
to
secure
their
children’s
release
are poor
and, to
cover
expenses,
often
share
homes
with
others
who are
unrelated
or in
the
country
illegally.
Many of
those
roommates
have
been
reluctant
to
submit
their
fingerprints.
For
Adan, a
27-year-old
Guatemalan
living
in south
Florida,
leaving
his
17-year-old
sister
in
detention
was out
of the
question.
He
followed
the
process
and was
given
custody
of her.
Now, he
wants to
leave
his
apartment.
“I
feel I
need to
move to
have a
sense of
security”,
said the
landscaper
about
ICE
knowing
where he
lives.
He did
not
provide
a last
name
because
of his
immigration
status.
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