Judge orders immediate release of Brazilian boy, 9
He has been in a shelter 4 weeks
CHICAGO — A federal judge in Chicago on Thursday ordered the U.S. government to release a 9-year-old Brazilian boy separated from his mother at the U.S.-Mexico border, saying their continued separation “irreparably harms them both.”
Judge Manish Shah mulled his decision for just a few hours before finding that Lidia Karine Souza can have custody of her son, Diogo, who has spent four weeks at a government-contracted shelter in Chicago. Shah ordered that the child be released Thursday, but didn’t specify a time. Souza’s attorneys said she would pick up her son Thursday afternoon.
The mother, who has applied for asylum, was released from an immigrant detention facility in Texas on June 9 and is living with relatives outside Boston.
“Judge Shah has vindicated the rule of law and taken a definitive step to allow Lidia’s son to finally be with her again. We are hopeful that this outcome will benefit other families facing similar circumstances,” attorneys Jesse Bless and Britt Miller said in a written statement.
Shah, the son of immigrants from India, took just four hours before posting his written ruling after a hearing Thursday morning.
The decision came two days after a different judge ordered the government to reunite more than 2,000 immigrant children with their families within 30 days, or 14 days for those younger than 5. White House spokeswoman Lindsay Walters declined to say Thursday whether the administration will be able to abide by the deadline. She said more than 500 children have been reunified with their families.
In Washington, D.C., on Thursday, police arrested nearly 600 people after hundreds of loudly chanting women demonstrated inside a Senate office building against Trump’s immigration policy. Among those arrested was Rep. Pramila Jayapal, the Democrat from Washington state said on twitter.
Meanwhile, Melania Trump spent time at a complex in Phoenix where dozens of migrant children separated from their parents at the border are being held.