US Border Patrol Violated Agency Rules in Deporting Thousands of Children
By Amanda Holpuch July 17, 2015
US border patrol agents violated agency rules in deporting thousands of unaccompanied immigrant children from 2009 to 2014, according to a federal audit released this week.
The US Government Accountability Office audit said that US Customs and Border Protection (CBP) repatriated 93% of unaccompanied children under age 14 from Mexico and Canada without documenting how they decided that the children would be safe when they return to their home countries. Jennifer Podkul, a senior program officer for the Migrant Rights and Justice program at the Women’s Refugee Commission, is one of several people to have questioned how effective the CBP process is in earlier reports. “The part that is illegal is not that they have not been giving them documentation, the part that’s illegal is that they have not been adequately screening them according to the law,” Podkul said. The GAO report was released on Tuesday, the same day that Immigrations and Customs Enforcement said it had released about 200 Central Americans in just over a week as it sped up the interview process used to determine whether those people would be in danger if repatriated. Advocates like Human Rights First say asylum seekers should generally not be held in detention centers. Detention centers have been overwhelmed by the recent spike in unaccompanied child migrants, who primarily come from Honduras, Guatemala and El Salvador, and cross the Mexico border to get into the US. Last year, Barack Obama said the border crossing of more than 47,000 unaccompanied children that year was an “urgent humanitarian situation”. There was a vast reduction in the amount of unaccompanied children who made it to the border in the first five months of this year, compared to the same period last year, according to a study released by Pew Research Center in April. This, as Mexico deports a record number of Central American immigrant children. The screening process used to determine whether Mexican children could be endangered by being repatriated has been a long-held concern for immigration rights groups. While children under 14 from most countries go before a judge to have their safety determined, Mexican and Canadian children are exempt from this rule and are instead asked a set of questions by a border patrol officer or agent. “CBP just does not have the training, the understanding of humanitarian protection, to make the assessment of these children from Mexico before sending them back to their home countries,” said Greg Chen, director of advocacy at the American Immigration Lawyers Association. |
US CUSTOMS AND BORDER PROTECTION DEPORTED UNACCOMPANIED CHILDREN FROM MEXICO AND CANADA WITHOUT DOCUMENTING HOW THEY KNEW MINORS WOULD BE SAFE. Images for Thought |
A Year On, Children Caught On Border Struggle To Stay, Aadpt |
Niños Inmigrantes en EEUU Aún Sin Destino |
By Amy Taxin July 4, 2015
LOS ANGELES (AP)— At 1-year-old, a wide-eyed, restless Joshua Tinoco faces the prospect of deportation to his native Honduras, one of tens of thousands of children who arrived at the U.S.-Mexico border last year.
While his teenage mother has been allowed to stay in the U.S. and seek a green card under a federal program for abused, abandoned and neglected children, Joshua has been classified as an enforcement priority by immigration prosecutors, his lawyer said. "I fought so much for him to be here with me and now they yank him from my hands," said Dunia Bueso, the boy's now-18-year-old mother. "How is the child going to go there alone, and with no one to take care of him?" Today, like Joshua, many of the children who arrived from Central America still have cases churning through the immigration courts and don't know what the outcome will be. Those fleeing gang violence and domestic strife have applied for asylum or the government's program for abandoned children and are waiting for an answer. Those who have won the right to stay in the country still face challenges in reuniting with family they haven't seen in years, attending school in a foreign language and coping with the trauma they fled or debts owed to relatives or the smugglers who brought them. More than 57,000 unaccompanied children from El Salvador, Guatemala and Honduras arrived on the border in the last fiscal year, and since then another 18,000, government statistics show. Immigration courts have fast-tracked the cases in a bid to stem a growing backlog. It's difficult, however, to know how many are winning; so far, roughly 6,200 of the children who arrived since July have been issued deportation orders, mostly for failing to attend court, but as many asylum applications were filed by children between October and March. Immigrant advocates fear too many children are hard-pressed to find lawyers and say many are bona fide asylum seekers fleeing gang violence and rape. But border enforcement supporters doubt those handed deportation orders will be sent home as the Obama administration would face political backlash from putting children on a plane, especially when their family is here... |
"Con un año de edad, el inquieto Joshua Tinoco enfrenta la posibilidad de ser deportado a su natal Honduras, uno de miles de niños que llegaron el año pasado a través de la frontera de México con Estados Unidos.
Aunque a su madre adolescente se le ha permitido quedarse en territorio estadounidense y aspirar a una tarjeta de residencia bajo un programa federal para niños que han sido víctimas de abuso, de negligencia o abandonados, los fiscales de inmigración han clasificado a Joshua como una prioridad de deportación, dijo su abogado. “Luché tanto para que estuviera aquí conmigo y ahora me lo arrancan de las manos”, dijo Dunia Bueso, la madre de 18 años de edad. “¿Cómo va a irse el niño allá solo y sin nadie que lo cuide?” Al igual que Joshua, muchos de los niños que llegaron de Centroamérica aún tienen casos pendientes en las cortes migratorias y no saben cuál será su destino. Quienes huyen de las pandillas y la violencia en sus países han solicitado asilo o acogerse bajo el programa gubernamental para niños abandonados y están a la espera de una resolución. Aquellos que se han ganado el derecho a permanecer en el país aún enfrentan retos para reunirse con familiares a los que no han visto en años, asistir a la escuela en un idioma extranjero y lidiar con el trauma del que huyeron o con las deudas que les deben a sus parientes o a los traficantes que los llevaron. Más de 57,000 niños procedentes de El Salvador, Guatemala y Honduras llegaron a la frontera en el último año fiscal, y desde entonces han arribado otros 18,000, de acuerdo a estadísticas gubernamentales. Las cortes de migración han acelerado los procesos en un intento por apurarse en solucionar el retraso en casos pendientes. Sin embargo, es difícil saber cuántos están ganando su caso. Hasta ahora, se han emitido órdenes de deportación a casi 6,200 de los niños que llegaron desde julio, la mayoría por no asistir a la corte, pero entre octubre y marzo se llenaron casi el mismo número de solicitudes de asilo. Los defensores de los inmigrantes temen que muchos se ven obligados a buscar abogados y dicen que gran cantidad de ellos realmente merecen el asilo al huir de la violencia de las pandillas y violaciones, pero los que están a favor de la defensa de las fronteras dudan que aquellos de los que se ordenó su deportación sean enviados realmente de regreso a sus países, debido a las represalias políticas que enfrentaría el gobierno del presidente Barack Obama al subir niños a un avión, especialmente si la familia de éstos permanece en Estados Unidos... |
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Images for thought"So far this fiscal year, the agency has sent 1,325 unaccompanied children back to their countries, mostly boys in their mid-late teens, government statistics show. Most were in the government's custody since arriving here or asked to go home, officials said, adding that younger children usually traveled with a teen parent or elder sibling." |