U.S. judge orders immediate release of detained boy
CHICAGO — A federal judge in Chicago on Thursday ordered the immediate release from detention of a 9-year-old Brazilian boy who was separated from his mother at the U.S.-Mexico border.
Judge Manish Shah said Lidia Karine Souza can have custody of her son, Diogo, who has spent four weeks at a shelter in Chicago.
The mother, who has applied for asylum, was released from an immigrant detention facility in Texas on June 9.
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. Souza’s attorneys nonetheless moved forward with an emergency hearing in their lawsuit against the Trump administration to demand her son be immediately released. He has spent four weeks at a government-contracted shelter in Chicago, much of it alone in a room, quarantined with chickenpox. He spent his ninth birthday on Monday without his mom.
Souza has said that when she would call her son — allowed just 20 minutes per week — he would beg his mom though tears to do everything in her power to get him back to her. The 27-year-old woman, who is seeking asylum, searched for weeks to find Diogo after the two were separated at the border in late May. When she was released June 9, she filled out nearly 40 pages of documents that U.S. officials told her were required to regain custody.
Then they told her that the rules had changed and that she needed any family members living with her in the United States to be fingerprinted and still more documents.
At a hearing Thursday, government attorney Craig Oswald said U.S. officials have been “raked over the coals … before” for not being thorough about such background checks, which he said are meant to ensure a child’s safety.
Souza was seeking safety by coming to the U.S., but it’s not the safety she sought for herself and her son. This was not the American dream.
“This … is a nightmare,” she said in an interview earlier in the week at a Chicago hotel.
At Thursday’s hearing, Shah questioned Department of Justice attorney Sarah Fabian about whether the government has a process by which the boy’s status could be switched from “unaccompanied” to “accompanied minor,” making it easier to release him promptly to his mom. He was automatically designated “unaccompanied” after his mom was initially detained at the border.
“Not to my knowledge, your honor,” Fabian answered.
After a pause, Shah said the lack of a process could raise major constitutional issues. He didn’t elaborate.
For days and weeks now, some of the hundreds of parents separated from their children at the Mexican border by the Trump administration have been battling one of the world’s most complex immigration systems to find their youngsters and get them back.
For many, it has been a lopsided battle, and a frustrating and heartbreaking one. Most do not speak English. Many know nothing about their children’s whereabouts. And some say their calls to the government’s 1-800 information hotline have gone unanswered.