A Guatemalan Mother Could Lose Her Daughter, Because She's an American
Source: New York Times
A Guatemalan Mother Could Lose Her Daughter, Because She’s an American
By Miriam Jordan
Nov. 23, 2018
Vilma Carrillo was one of a group of migrant women flown to Texas in July from a detention center in Georgia to be reunited with their children, who had been separated from them as part of the Trump administration’s clampdown at the border.
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Ms. Carrillo has been caught at the intersection of several Trump administration policies intended to make it harder for Central American migrants to settle in the United States. Her case is more serious than what thousands of other migrant families have faced: Because her daughter is an American citizen, Ms. Carrillo has been told that she could lose custody.
One cause of her dilemma, ironically, is the very reason Ms. Carrillo undertook the hazardous trip to bring her daughter back to the United States. Ms. Carrillo sought to re-enter the country with a claim of asylum, citing years of beatings she had suffered at the hands of her husband in Guatemala.
Her asylum claim was denied after the Trump administration early this year ruled out domestic abuse as legal grounds for granting refuge. Even if Ms. Carrillo agreed to go home to Guatemala, immigration lawyers said, her daughter’s status as an American citizen could prompt authorities in the United States to decide that the reports of domestic violence in the family make it too risky to allow her to return.
The fact that Yeisvi is an American citizen creates another problem: While migrant families can be placed together in family detention centers in cases where the courts rule against allowing them to go free with a bond or other restrictions, it is against the law to hold a United States citizen in one of the facilities.
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Read more: https://www.nytimes.com/2018/11/23/us/migrant-family-separation-citizen-domestic-abuse.html