As deadline nears, new worries for separated families

As Thursday’s court-ordered deadline for reuniting families separated at the border draws closer, immigrant advocates raised concerns that immigration authorities are coercing parents to sign deportation documents to get their children back.

Advocates in El Paso, one of three locations where family reunifications are taking place, say some reunified parents have reported that while they were held in detention centers, they were coerced or pressured by the Immigration and Customs Enforcement into signing documents agreeing to be deported or to give up their rights to pursue asylum.

“They were being pressured by ICE to sign papers, that it would be the fastest way that they could see their child again, that if they choose to fight their case, they would be kept in detention for many months longer, prolonging their separation from their children,” Royce Murray, policy director with the American Immigration Council, said during a conference call with reporters.

More than 450 parents accused of il-

legally entering the country may have been deported while their children remain in the U.S., a major delay in the federal effort to reunite all the families by Thursday’s court-ordered deadline.

In federal court papers filed Monday, President Donald Trump’s administration said the cases of 463 parents are “under review.” The filing also said 879 parents have been reunited with their children and another 538 have been cleared for reunification.

In Phoenix, where family reunifications are also taking place, 126 families, a total of 266 parents and children in all, have been reunited as of Monday, said Stephanie Petrilli, communications director at Lutheran Social Services of the Southwest. The agency has been providing humanitarian assistance to reunited families. Reuniting parents interviewed by The Arizona Republic at the Lutheran Social Services offices in Phoenix said ICE officers told them that their children would be given to American families unless they signed papers agreeing to be quickly deported.

Juana Soch-tohom de Bulux, a 38year-old Guatemalan immigrant mother who came to the U.S. seeking asylum, said she was pressured into signing her own deportation order amid a flurry of paperwork she could not understand.

She entered the United States with her 15-year-old daughter on June 1, when the zero-tolerance policy was in effect. After being apprehended by Border Patrol and taken to a processing center near the border, she was presented with many documents in English.

“I imagine it was the official who first attended to me, he made me sign the document, he made me sign various documents, but supposedly it was to send my daughter to a shelter, but it was in English and there were so many papers that I didn’t know what I was signing,” Soch-tohom de Bulux said in an interview with The Arizona Republic after her release from the Eloy Detention Center.

While being detained at Eloy, she said her deportation officer informed her that she had signed a paper to be deported. Working with a judge, Soch-tohom de Bulux was able to request a credible-fear interview, one of the first steps in an asylum case. After passing the interview, she was released on bond, allowing her to reunite with her daughter 2,400 miles away in New York.

Most of the reunited families in Arizona and Texas are headed to destinations far from the border. A coalition of non-profit organizations — RAICES, FWD.us and Flights for Families — is helping reunited families in Phoenix; El Paso; and McAllen, Texas, cover the costs of temporary housing after their release as well as airfare to travel to their final destinations.

Volunteers are helping the immigrant families check in at airports and guiding them through the security process.

There are 917 parents considered not eligible or “not yet known to be eligible” — the 463 plus 454 others — to be reunited with their kids, the filing says. Some of those parents are no longer in the country, others have criminal records, communicable diseases or other issues rendering them ineligible.

“The government’s word alone on this determination is not sufficient,” the ACLU said in a statement. “We’ve asked the court to order the government to provide details about the nature of the charge, conviction, or warrant for each parent whom the government excluded, so that we can verify that not reunifying the child is truly in their best interest.”

The issue began with the Trump administration’s zero-tolerance policy that resulted in all immigrants entering the U.S. anywhere other than legal entry points being arrested and their children ushered to Health and Human Services centers. Prior to the Trump policy, immigrants caught entering at non-entry points with children had simply been sent back with the children.

Last month, federal judge Dana Sabraw said the Trump policy might violate immigrants’ due process rights and ordered the administration to reunify all children within 30 days. The administration missed its first deadline of reuniting the first group — children under 5. The government reunited 57 of the 103 “tender age” children with their parents.

The government faces a Thursday deadline to reunite children older than 5 with their parents.

The ACLU and Trump administration attorneys are also at odds over the political-asylum application process, according to court documents filed Tuesday in a U.S. court in San Diego. The feds have offered a four-day waiting period, but ACLU attorneys want seven days.

Meanwhile, advocates are concerned that some families who have been reunited and released into the community with GPS devices do not have enough time to check in with ICE once they reach their final destination. Murray said she has interviewed some reunited parents who were given only one week, instead of the customary two weeks, to check in with ICE or were told to check in at the wrong ICE office.

“These moments of reunification and release are incredibly chaotic and often happen in the middle of the night, and we want to make sure people understand what their obligations are,” Murray said. “We want to make sure these families are not being set up to fail by giving them confusing information or bad information about where and when they are supposed to appear.”

Immigrant advocates are also concerned that the government is preparing to quickly deport some families who have been reunited, and instead of being released, these families have been sent to large detention centers in Dilley and Karnes City, Texas.

At the Dilley Detention Center, the Dilley Pro Bono Project, which provides legal assistance to detained families, has encountered 31 families who were sent there after being reunited, said Shalyn Fluharty, the managing attorney. Lawyers from the project said they have seen signs the government is preparing to quickly deport them, she said.

Some of the families had documents indicating that the government had planned to release them but detained them instead. Others had notices to appear in front of an immigration judge for removal proceedings, yet had been detained.

According to Fluharty, that “has us worried that the government’s intention is to deport many of the families they are bringing here to Dilley.”

Lawyers from the project also interviewed reunited mothers who had been prevented from enrolling their children in a school located at the facility.

“Our best guess is that the reason that they are not allowing them to enroll in school is because they believe that they will not be here for very long,” Fluharty said.

KIND – Kids in Need of Defense – has been a leader in the charge to reunite the children with their parents.

“We cannot be a nation that puts immigrant children in jail and throws away the key,” the group said in a statement.