Parents facing tougher rules to get their immigrant children back
MIAMI » Armando Tabora desperately wants to get his teenage daughter out of the government detention facility where she has been for more than three months. He has been stymied at every turn.
The Florida landscaping worker took the bold step of going to a government office to submit fingerprints and other documents required for immigrants to get their children out of government custody — and now that information is being shared with deportation agents.
He was then told that the woman he rents a room from would also need to submit fingerprints, something she refused to do. He then sought out friends who are here legally to help him out, to no avail.
“I don’t know what to do,” said Tabora, an immigrant from Honduras who has lived more than a decade
in the shadows without being detected. “My daughter is desperate, crying. She wants to get out of there.”
The drama of parents being separated from their children at the border dominated the headlines this year, but thousands of immigrant families are experiencing a similar frustration: the increasing hurdles they must surmount to take custody of sons, daughters
and relatives who crossed the border on their own.
The Trump administration has imposed more stringent rules and vetting for family members to get these children back as part of an across-the-board hardening of immigration policy.
As a result, family members are struggling to comply with the new requirement, keeping children in detention longer and helping the number of migrant kids in government custody soar to the highest levels ever.
Federal officials insist the policies are about ensuring the safety of children.
More than 12,000 children are in government shelters, compared with 2,400 in May 2017.
The average length that children spend in detention has increased from 40 days in fiscal 2016 to 59 in year 2018, according to federal data.
The requirements include the submission of fingerprints by all adults in the household where a migrant child will live. These sponsors — the term the U.S. uses for adults who take custody of immigrant children — are also subject to more background checks, proofs of income and home visits, lawyers say.
And this information will be shared with Immigration and Customs Enforcement — something that did not occur in the past.