The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Separation of some could be permanent
HOUSTON — As the U.S. government said it had reunited every immigrant family it could, Josefina Ortiz Corrales remained in an immigration detention center and her adopted son in the care of her elder daughter.
Paulina Gutierrez was in her hometown in Guatemala, earning less than $2 a day preparing strings for candle wicks while praying for the quick return of her 7-year-old daughter from government custody in Arizona.
Hundreds of families remain separated a day after Thursday’s court-ordered deadline, with no reunification in sight. Lawyers and advocates sharply criticized the U.S. government for creating a bureaucratic and legal snarl that’s made it difficult to reunify families and created a scenario where some may never see their children again.
“There is no question that there may be families that are permanently separated as a result of this policy,” said Michelle Brané, director of migrant rights at the Women’s Refugee Commission.
The American Civil Liberties Union plans to start looking for all the parents on their own while going back through all of the cases of those not yet reunified to see if they could put more families back together. The advocacy group Kids in Need of Defense has deployed staff to Honduras and Guatemala to facilitate reunions.
“I think it’s going to be really hard detective work,” said Lee Gelernt, an American Civil Liberties Union attorney.
The government says the mothers and fathers of 120 children “waived reunification” and dozens more weren’t eligible to get their children back because they had criminal records or weren’t the biological parent.
U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement officials say some of the parents who were deported had the chance to take their children and declined after already paying smugglers thousands of dollars to make the dangerous journey from Central America and wanting a better life for their kids to stay in the U.S.
“And once their children are here, they are generally not going to give up the opportunity for their children to remain in the country,” said Matthew Albence, the executive director of ICE’s enforcement and removal operations.
Many parents say that’s not true.
Several have told The Associated Press and immigration lawyers that they were told in detention to sign paperwork that they didn’t fully understand.
Gutierrez, 26, says she crossed the Rio Grande about two months ago with her 7-year-old daughter, Antonia. Under the terms of the Trump administration’s zero-tolerance policy, she was subject to arrest and prosecution for entering the country without permission.
She was eventually sent to a detention center in Arizona. She accuses immigration agents of lying to her so that she would agree to be deported.
“If not, you will spend months here,” she recalled agents telling her. “They said, ‘It’s not us who want to do this to you. It’s the president who is ordering this.’ ”
Gutierrez does video chats with her daughter, regularly looks back at photos of her and hopes she can be returned by her 8th birthday.