Migrant families separated by U.S. are
refusing reunification over dangers: ACLU
Send a link to a friend
[September 08, 2018]
By Tom Hals
(Reuters) - Immigrant parents separated
from their children by the Trump administration and returned to their
homes are refusing to be reunited with their children because their
countries are so dangerous, an attorney for the American Civil Liberties
Union told a court on Friday.
"We've had very difficult conversations with the parents this week," Lee
Gelernt of the ACLU told a federal judge in San Diego. "As much as they
want to be with their child, and it's heartbreaking, they feel it's too
dangerous."
Gelernt told the court that he had spent time over the past week in
Guatemala trying to locate parents of some of the roughly 300 children
in U.S. care and found about two-thirds were refusing to have their
child returned to them.
Gelernt said parents who refused to be reunited tended to have older
children who could be recruited by violent gangs if they returned home.
In addition, some children have relatives in the United States and are
unlikely to end up in foster care.
The ACLU contacted parents in Central America of 162 children and said
109 refused reunification, according to a court filing.
U.S. authorities separated about 2,600 children from parents who had
crossed the U.S. southern border with Mexico, many fleeing gang violence
in Guatemala and Honduras.
In late June, the administration was forced under intense global
criticism to abandon the policy, which was aimed at discouraging illegal
immigration. Soon after it was rescinded, U.S. Judge Dana Sabraw in San
Diego ordered the children to be reunited with their parents.
![](http://archives.lincolndailynews.com/2016/Aug/26/images/ads/current/directory_buttons.png)
[to top of second column]
|
![](../images/090817pics/news_c7.jpg)
Children and family members take part in a sit-in following a march
to mark “the court-ordered deadline for the Trump Administration to
reunify thousands of families separated at the border, in
Washington, U.S., July 26, 2018. REUTERS/Carlos Barria
![](../images/ads/current/fitzpatrick_lda_SPONSOR_2017.png)
Reunifications have slowed to a trickle, largely because about 300
parents were removed from the United States without their children.
Immigration advocates have said it is difficult to find the parents
because many live in remote areas of Central America or have gone into
hiding.
![](http://archives.lincolndailynews.com/2018/Sep/08/images/ads/current/cca_laptop-sda021709.png)
Gelernt said if the children failed to get U.S. asylum they would be
reunited with their parents.
The Trump administration said on Thursday it plans to withdraw from a
federal court agreement that strictly limits the conditions under which
authorities can detain migrant children, and proposed new rules it said
would enable it to detain minors during their immigration proceedings.
(Reporting by Tom Hals in Wilmington, Delaware)
[© 2018 Thomson Reuters. All rights
reserved.]
Copyright 2018 Reuters. All rights reserved. This material may not be published,
broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.
Thompson Reuters is solely responsible for this content. |