Parents face tougher rules to get 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.