New research shows Immigration and Customs Enforcement is separating families in Massachusetts and across the country by deporting parents without their children.
Recent interviews with some of the hundreds of deportees arriving daily in Honduras reveal parents are not even given the chance to arrange child care prior to their removal.
Zain Lakhani, director of migrant rights and justice for the Women’s Refugee Commission, said it is a violation of U.S. immigration policy.
“We spoke with dozens and dozens of parents who were coming off the plane,” Lakhani reported. “Some inconsolable because they did not know where their children are, the vast majority of whom had never been asked if they had children at the time that they were arrested.”
Despite a directive implemented last year weakening protections for noncitizen parents, Lakhani pointed out ICE is still required to ask anyone they arrest if they are a parent and document their information. Nearly 9,000 people across New England were detained by ICE last year. A significant number are parents.
Lakhani acknowledged noncitizen parents and their children have always faced separation due to deportation but what they are seeing now is unprecedented. She noted the government previously provided information about family separations but there is now a lack of transparency. She added the rapid rate at which people are being deported also makes it nearly impossible for them to access legal counsel or other resources.
Lakhani stressed what is happening now is why parental interest policies were created.
“To ensure that there was monitoring, tracking them, that parents could maintain their relationships with their children if they were arrested and subject to enforcement, they could maintain some sort of connection with their children,” Lakhani outlined. “That is what we are seeing violated.”
Lakhani emphasized her organization is working with social service providers, child welfare agencies and other professionals in foreign countries to fill in information gaps and develop comprehensive tracking systems. She argued the separations represent policy choices rather than necessities and the government should uphold policies designed to preserve family unity, regardless of citizenship status.
Increased deportations separate families, limit access to legal counsel was originally published by the Public News Service and is republished with permission.
Featured Photo: Almost 30,000 U.S. citizen children in Massachusetts live with at least one undocumented parent, according to a report from the American Immigration Council. (Adobe Stock)