Los Angeles Times

Border Patrol agents stop handing over most parents

The suspension of prosecutio­ns comes as the fate of hundreds of ‘separated minors’ remains unclear.

- By Molly Hennessy-Fiske and Jazmine Ulloa

McALLEN, Texas — U.S. Border Patrol agents have stopped handing parents over to the Justice Department for prosecutio­n when they are caught crossing the border illegally with their children, the head of the U.S. Customs and Border Protection agency said Monday.

The statement by Commission­er Kevin McAleenan marked a significan­t, if temporary, step back from the “zero tolerance” policy that the Trump administra­tion has pursued for the last two months, which has led to more than 2,000 children being taken from their parents. President Trump issued an order Wednesday to stop separating families.

“I directed the temporary suspension of prosecutio­ns for families in that category while we work through a process ... where we can maintain family unity while enforcing prosecutio­n efforts,” McAleenan said.

He said he hoped to find a way to resume prosecutio­ns more quickly, so that families would be separated for less time.

His statement came as White House Press Secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders said the government was starting to “run out of space” to house people apprehende­d crossing the border. “We’re simply out of resources,” Sanders said.

The country’s three family detention centers can house 3,326 immigrants, according to an April report by the Government Accountabi­lity Office. As of last week, they housed 2,623, according to a spokeswoma­n for Immigratio­n and Customs Enforcemen­t. ICE officials did not respond to requests for comment Monday.

The largest processing center for immigrants, on the border in McAllen, can house 1,500 people and held 1,100 on Monday, officials said during a tour. Guatemalan consular officials could be seen meeting with women as children waited in line for burritos or watched

cartoons on television­s suspended over their chain-link fenced holding areas.

The administra­tion has refused so far to say when — or if — most children who were taken from their parents in recent weeks would be reunited with them.

McAleenan said 538 children who had been taken from their families for short periods but had remained in the custody of the Border Patrol have been reunited with parents.

But the fate of the considerab­ly larger group of children who have been transferre­d to the custody of the Department of Health and Human Services remains much more uncertain.

Advocates have expressed concern that the government may have difficulty figuring out which children belong with which parents. McAleenan said immigrant children are issued identifyin­g numbers upon arrival, and family members are now being issued an additional grouping number so they can be tracked. It was unclear when this procedure began, however.

On Saturday, the department said that as of Wednesday, it had 2,053 “separated minors” in its custody. HHS officials and the White House have declined to provide updated figures to members of Congress or the public. Lawyers working with parents to find their children say they have faced a confusing and often unresponsi­ve bureaucrac­y and no assurance that families will be reunified.

Advocates for immigrants say that in some cases, parents separated from their children and detained while awaiting a hearing on a claim for asylum are being given a choice: If they want to see their children, they must withdraw their asylum claims and agree to be deported.

“They went in and told the parents if you sign this, you can get your kids back,” said Jodi Goodwin, an attorney coordinati­ng a “rapid response team” of about 10 volunteer lawyers aiding immigrants at Port Isabel detention center in Texas’ Rio Grande Valley.

Under U.S. law, people who enter the country and say they fear being persecuted in their home countries are entitled to hearings to determine if their claims are valid.

In many cases, immigratio­n judges reject those claims and the migrants are deported, but thousands of asylum claims have been approved.

Trump, in a Twitter message over the weekend, suggested he opposes that process, saying that “when somebody comes in, we must immediatel­y, with no Judges or Court Cases, bring them back from where they came.”

On Monday, he repeated that sentiment. “We want a system where, when people come in illegally, they have to go out. And a nice simple system that works,” Trump told reporters during a photo session with King Abdullah II of Jordan. Abolishing asylum hearings would require Congress to change the law.

Advocates for the immigrants caught up in the enforcemen­t process have filed at least three lawsuits challengin­g the administra­tion’s policies. A fourth suit has been filed by Democratic state attorneys general.

One of the cases, filed by Texas RioGrande Legal Aid in federal court in Washington, argues that the government was separating children from their parents to punish the families, a penalty not authorized by law. The suit also accuses the government of denying the immigrant families their right to due process.

Regardless of whether an asylum claim is valid, a person who crosses the border illegally can be charged with illegal entry, a misdemeano­r. The administra­tion since early May has been insisting on prosecutin­g all adults who are apprehende­d. Typically, after a brief stay in jail, they plead guilty and are sentenced to time served. But because minors cannot be sent to an adult jail, the prosecutio­n has served as a reason for removing children from their parents.

Now that the administra­tion says it has reversed that policy and will detain families together while they await asylum hearings, lawyers working with families said many questions remained unanswered. Among them are how many parents had been deported without their children, whether any child has been deported or whether children have been released to family members other than their parents.

Another unanswered question is what will happen when the clock runs out on the administra­tion’s legal authority to detain families together. Court rulings have limited the government’s authority to hold children in detention facilities to no more than 20 days. Sanders declined to say what the administra­tion planned to do when that 20-day period expired.

“This is a temporary solution,” she said. “Hopefully, Congress will pass a law” that would resolve the issue, she said.

That’s unlikely. The House plans to consider immigratio­n legislatio­n this week, but Republican leaders have indicated they’re uncertain about having the votes to pass anything. Divisions among Republican lawmakers have stymied efforts at legislatio­n, and Trump recently tweeted that Republican­s should “stop wasting their time” on the effort.

Democrats oppose the legislatio­n, which would limit current legal immigratio­n.

The administra­tion is taking steps to increase its capacity to hold migrants in detention. Pentagon spokeswoma­n Dana White confirmed that the military has been directed to build tent camps at two bases in Texas to temporaril­y house migrants. The camps will be built at Ft. Bliss, an Army base in El Paso near the U.S.Mexico border, and at Goodfellow Air Force Base, which is near San Angelo in central Texas, White said.

The facility at Ft. Bliss will be designed to hold families with adults, while Goodfellow will be used to hold children who arrive on the U.S. border without a parent.

It’s unclear how many people the camps will be constructe­d to hold, although officials previously said that the government was looking to build space for as many as 20,000 migrants. Initial constructi­on of the facilities could be completed next month.

On Monday, as McAleenan visited border facilities where families were being held, lawyers demanded that the government pick up the pace of reunificat­ions.

At the Port Isabel detention center on Monday, Goodwin said none of her clients had been reunited with their children and only about a quarter had spoken with their children by phone. The Central American parents told lawyers they had been separated from children as young as 18 months. One child was deaf. Others suffered chronic illnesses such as asthma.

Anne Chandler, Houston director of the Tahirih Justice Center, a national immigrant advocacy organizati­on, was working with a Central American immigrant detained in Houston who had agreed to be deported after a Homeland Security official told him he would be reunified with his 12-year-old daughter at the airport after being separated for more than a month.

“I just want some clarity from the government,” Chandler said.

After visiting Port Isabel on Sunday, U.S. Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.) said she’d seen no evidence of family reunificat­ions. She said she spoke with nine women. “In every case, they were lied to,” she said. “In every case, save one, they have not spoken with their children. And in every case, they do not know where their children are.”

In El Paso, 32 immigrant parents who had been separated from their children were released Sunday after U.S. Customs and Border Protection withdrew federal criminal charges against them. The parents must still appear in immigratio­n court.

Ruben Garcia, founder of Annunciati­on House, a nonprofit that runs a shelter where the families were staying, said when they call a hotline for Health and Human Services, they are promised a response in five days.

“They were all released with just the phone number. The firewall with HHS is really strong. I’m not sure even ICE can get through,” Garcia said.

 ?? Robert Gauthier Los Angeles Times ?? A HONDURAN woman holds her baby after surrenderi­ng to Border Patrol agents in Granjeno, Texas. The Border Patrol has temporaril­y stopped transferri­ng parents over to the Justice Department for prosecutio­n.
Robert Gauthier Los Angeles Times A HONDURAN woman holds her baby after surrenderi­ng to Border Patrol agents in Granjeno, Texas. The Border Patrol has temporaril­y stopped transferri­ng parents over to the Justice Department for prosecutio­n.
 ?? Robert Gauthier Los Angeles Times ?? BORDER PATROL AGENT Rene Cisneros frisks Tom de Huachac, 33, who the agent said was apprehende­d while attempting to cross the U.S.-Mexico border in McAllen, Texas. De Huachac said he is from Guatemala.
Robert Gauthier Los Angeles Times BORDER PATROL AGENT Rene Cisneros frisks Tom de Huachac, 33, who the agent said was apprehende­d while attempting to cross the U.S.-Mexico border in McAllen, Texas. De Huachac said he is from Guatemala.

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