US immigrants in state of panic
Feds targeting families who smuggle in kids
sAn FRAnCIsCo: The Trump administration has announced it will begin arresting parents and other relatives who hire smugglers to bring their children into the United States, a move that sent a shudder through immigrant communities nationwide.
The new “surge initiative” by Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) marks the latest get-tough approach to immigration by the federal government since President Donald Trump took office.
The government says the effort aims to break up human smuggling operations, including arresting people who pay coyotes to get children across the US border.
That marks a sharp departure from policies in place under President Barack Obama’s administration, during which time tens of thousands of young people fleeing spiralling gang and drug violence in Honduras, Guatemala and El Salvador crossed the border.
The children were then placed with “sponsors” – typically parents, close relatives or family friends – who care for the minors while they attend school and their cases go through the immigration court system.
The government now says it plans to arrest the sponsors.
“ICE aims to disrupt and dismantle end-toend the illicit pathways used by transnational criminal organisations and human smuggling facilitators,” agency spokesman Sarah Rodriguez said.
“The sponsors who have placed children directly into harm’s way by entrusting them to violent criminal organisations will be held accountable.”
Officials did not respond to questions on Friday seeking details on the number of sponsors who would be targeted or already had been arrested, or what charges would be applied.
Immigrant advocacy groups said they were investigating a dozen arrests or ongoing investigations in Texas, Pennsylvania, New York and Virginia.
Elsy Segovia, an immigration attorney in Newark, New Jersey, said armed agents visit- ed her client on Wednesday under the guise of checking something with his Social Security number then announced he was being investigated for smuggling his 16-year-old nephew from El Salvador, who crossed the border in Arizona last week.
“They coerced him into giving over his phone, and they said if you don’t tell the truth, we will take away your temporary protected status,” Segovia said, referring to a programme that has allowed many Salvadorans to legally live in the US.
The man’s nephew had been fleeing gang violence in El Salvador, and the agents told him they knew he had wired money to coyotes to get his relative here, Segovia said. Department of Homeland Security spokesman Gillian Christensen said that as a matter of policy, the agency could not comment on an ongoing law enforcement action.
“Arresting those who come forward to sponsor unaccompanied children during their immigration proceedings, often parents, is unimaginably cruel,” said Wendy Young, president of Kids in Need of Defence, a nonprofit that has matched thousands of unaccompanied minors with attorneys in the last eight years.
“Without caregivers to come forward, many of these children will languish in costly detention centres or be placed in foster care at great expense to states.”