For immigrants, guardian plan would mean peace of mind
As we reach the final months of this year’s legislative session, New York legislators have an opportunity to protect immigrant families at a time when increasing enforcement has created fear and uncertainty in our communities.
A bill currently before the Senate would allow immigrant parents to appoint a “standby guardian” to ensure that their children are properly cared for in the event they are arrested or deported by ICE.
This standby guardian idea was originally adopted to help parents facing serious illness because lawmakers recognized that parents deserved to have the peace of mind and security of designating someone to care for their child, in the event they couldn’t. Under the current law, a standby guardian is someone who is pre-assigned to become a legal guardian in the event that a parent becomes so sick that she cannot care for her children.
Unfortunately, we are in a time of crisis now for immigrant parents, making an expansion of the standby guardian law necessary. Under the Trump administration, arrests of non-criminal immigrants have skyrocketed — the rate has more than doubled nationally, and more than quadrupled in New York City and the surrounding counties — and immigrant parents’ fears have skyrocketed, too. Reckless rhetoric from the president and federal
officials has also contributed to a hotbed of toxic stress for immigrants and their family members. Parents across the city and country worry that if they are targeted for deportation then their children, even those children who are U.S. citizens, could be left without a legal guardian and caretaker.
Children could be left without anyone who can provide the stable, permanent guardianship and support that a parent provides, including the ability to make determinations that will support their health and wellbeing. For example, without this law, a deported parent’s child who is diagnosed with cancer may be prevented from undergoing chemotherapy because of a lack of anyone available in the United States who can provide lawful consent. It is a truly terrible thing to force parents to choose between leaving their child here without this protection or uproot their children to a country they have in most cases never even visited, a disruptive and potentially damaging result for children.
The bill currently before the Senate would help address these concerns. Currently, parents can designate a person to be in a “parental relation” to their child. But this designation is by its nature temporary and does not impart the full rights of a guardian—like the ability to consent to a major medical treatment for that child. Allowing immigrant parents who face detention or deportation to designate a standby guardian will help them ensure that their children remain safe and healthy, without in any way diminishing parents’ rights either before deportation or after.
We have heard from worried parents who have expressed fear about what might happen to their children if they are arrested by ICE. These families deserve to know that their children will be safe, even if they’re not around. This bill would give immigrant families some peace of mind, and would help calm fears and anxieties that can themselves be damaging to children.
As Mayor Bill de Blasio has said, the federal government’s immigration practices are outrageous. But no matter our opinions about our nation’s current deportation priority policies, we can all agree that children’s health and well-being must be protected. The standby guardian bill passed the Assembly with bipartisan support. Children across the state need the Senate to pass it, too.