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ICE detains immigrant mom, holds her 18-month-old baby in a facility 120 miles away
https://www.dailykos.com/stories/2018/5/17/1765101/-ICE-detains-immigrant-mom-holds-her-18-month-old-baby-in-a-facility-120-miles-awayICE detains immigrant mom, holds her 18-month-old baby in a facility 120 miles away
Gabe Ortiz
Daily Kos Staff
Thursday May 17, 2018 · 4:23 PM EDT
In Austin, Texas, an 18-month-old toddler is sitting in an immigration detention facility. He’s probably crying, with only strangers in a strange place to comfort him. He doesn’t want the strangers, though. He wants his mother, but his mother is herself detained, in another facility 120 miles away. They were torn apart by brutal tactics of Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE):
Fleeing government violence in Honduras, Mirian came to the U.S. with her young son on Feb. 20, 2018, presenting herself to immigration authorities and asking for asylum. During her interview, Mirian gave the immigration officers her Honduran ID card and several identification documents for her child, including his birth certificate and his hospital birth record, both of which list her as his mother.
However, once the interview was over, the officers said that they were going to take her son away from her. She repeatedly asked why they couldn’t stay together, but she was not given a reason. The officers then made her carry her 18-month-old child outside where a government car was waiting. As she placed him in the car seat, he began to cry. Without giving her a moment to comfort him or say goodbye, the officers shut the door and drove away.
However, once the interview was over, the officers said that they were going to take her son away from her. She repeatedly asked why they couldn’t stay together, but she was not given a reason. The officers then made her carry her 18-month-old child outside where a government car was waiting. As she placed him in the car seat, he began to cry. Without giving her a moment to comfort him or say goodbye, the officers shut the door and drove away.
It’s now been two months since that terrible day, and Mirian and her child are still separated. “They are just one of hundreds of families who are subjected to ICE’s brutal tactic of forcibly separating immigrant parents and children,” the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) writes, “and on whose behalf the ACLU has brought a national class-action lawsuit.”
In late March, another family, “Ms. L” and her 7-year-old daughter “S.S.,” were reunited thanks to another lawsuit from the ACLU. They had been detained thousands of miles apart from each other for more than four months, despite Ms. L passing her initial asylum interview. “When the officers separated them,” the ALCU said at the time, “Ms. L. could hear her daughter in the next room screaming that she did not want to be taken away from her mother”:
DHS Secretary Kirstjen Nielsen admitted that the reunion of the Congolese mother and her child “took too long,” but she maintained that the agencies’ standard was “in every case, keep that family together.” She further maintained that when immigration authorities separate parents and children, it’s done because “the law tells them to” and it’s in the “interest of the child.”
ICE Executive Associate Director Matthew T. Albence, who oversees enforcement and removal operations, assured Congresswoman Lucille Roybal-Allard that ICE's "concern always is the health and well-being of that child."
ICE Executive Associate Director Matthew T. Albence, who oversees enforcement and removal operations, assured Congresswoman Lucille Roybal-Allard that ICE's "concern always is the health and well-being of that child."
Bullshit. Tearing children from their parents is what causes severe trauma in children, with the American Academy of Pediatrics saying that “the psychological distress, anxiety, and depression associated with separation from a parent would follow the children well after the immediate period of separation—even after the eventual reunification with a parent or other family.” Officials also claim that separating the child is to ensure they’re not being smuggled in by a non-relative, but Miriam had documentation showing the boy is her son:
ICE made both Ms. L and her seven-year-old suffer needlessly for four months without making any effort to verify the mother-daughter relationship. Only after the ACLU filed its lawsuit did the agency administer a DNA test, which of course proved their relationship.
There is an ongoing brutal war on immigrants and their children that amounts to ethnic cleansing. Just this week, the administration was revealed to be floating plans to create internment camps for detained migrant children. Internment camps for kids, and this is happening before our very eyes. “No matter how the Trump administration attempts to spin its actions,” the ACLU continues, “the suffering it is causing is intentional and illegal, and the administration must be held accountable.”
23 replies
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Please make it stop. Please make it stop. Please make it stop. Please make it stop. Please make it stop. Please make it stop. Please make it stop. Please make it stop. Please make it stop. Please make it stop. Please make it stop. Please make it stop. Please make it stop. Please make it stop.
Response to babylonsister (Original post)
