Washington Post
By Pamela Constable
June 12, 2014
Two
months ago, Lucy Cabrera’s adolescent son and daughter called her from
Honduras in tears. They said gangs had threatened to kidnap them and
they begged her to help
them flee to the U.S. She borrowed $6,000 and wired the money to a
series of guides in Guatemala and Mexico. On Saturday, her kids called
again — from a U.S. detention facility in Arizona. This time, there were
no tears.
“Thank
God they are safe now. It all happened so fast,” said Cabrera, who
sells homemade tortillas in the District. Although she is an illegal
immigrant, she said she
has been contacted by federal authorities so both children can
eventually be released to her custody. “It’s truly a miracle,” she
marvelled.
American
officials are scrambling to manage and understand the mass exodus of
unaccompanied minors from Central America who have turned up at the
southern U.S. border
over the past few months. The surge has overwhelmed detention
facilities, forcing the Obama administration to take emergency measures
to provide shelter, hire lawyers and locate sponsors to receive the
children.
The
number of such minors entering the U.S. has crept upwards since 2011,
and last fall it began to skyrocket. Since October alone, 47,000 have
arrived; officials expect
another 60,000 by the end of this year. The new surge is partly
seasonal, with early summer the easiest time to travel across the
region.
But
it is mainly being driven by two other factors. One is an epidemic of
gang violence across El Salvador, Honduras and Guatemala that has put
many children at risk,
especially when parents are not there to protect them. The second is a
perception, fueled by certain U.S. policies and by critics of the Obama
administration, that the government is treating young illegal immigrants
with unprecedented leniency.
As
a result, thousands of parents like Cabrera sense both an urgent need
and a unique opportunity to be reunited with children they left behind
years ago, fleeing conflict
or seeking a better life. With no legal means to import their children
from abroad, many of these undocumented families are putting their hopes
in an unexpected source of salvation: the U.S. immigration system.
Driven
by a mix of rumor, fact and political hyperbole, word has spread
through Latino communities in the Washington area and elsewhere that if
their children reach the
U.S. border alone, they will be allowed to go free.
The
families’ hopes are partly justified, because officials have speeded up
processing the new arrivals to relieve crowded shelters and release as
many as possible to
relatives or guardians. Unlike children from Mexico, who can be sent
back across the border right away, the law allows minors arriving from
more distant countries to be sheltered and then handed over to a sponsor
while awaiting court hearings.
The
greater Washington region, with more than 400,000 residents of Central
American origin, is one of several metropolitan areas in the U.S. where
the newly arrived minors
are most likely to be sent. Social and legal aid agencies said they
have helped hundreds of families petition to receive minors from border
detention over the past year.
But
the speculation that these minors simply will be set free is unfounded.
All of them are subject to deportation, and none are eligible for the
administration’s so-called
“Dream Act” program, which allows some illegal youths to remain if they have lived in the U.S. for at least five years and can meet a list of other requirements. The newcomers, in contrast, are ordered to appear in
immigration court and have no guarantee of
being allowed to stay.
“The
fact that they arrive in the U.S. and are released doesn’t give them
any legal status at all,” said Wendy Young, a lawyer in the District for
Kids in Need of Defense,
a nonprofit group that provides free legal help for such minors. Some
are eligible for special visas or legal protection, such as victims of
abuse or trafficking, but Young said at least 60 percent do not qualify
and eventually are ordered deported.
“This is not a slam dunk,” she said.
Senior
administration officials sought to reinforce that message in a
teleconference with journalists this week. They said their humanitarian
concern for children fleeing
“extraordinary violence” in Central America does not change the legal
requirement to place them in “removal proceedings,” as with adults who
enter the country illegally.
The
temptation, of course, is that families whose children face deportation
may simply hide them away, shuttling them among friends and relatives
in different states.
On the other hand, parents or guardians must supply immigration
officials with detailed information about themselves in order to recieve
a child from government custody, making such evasion more difficult.
Before
they even reach the United States, children face extreme hazards while
traveling across Mexico and trying to cross the border. Smugglers often
rob, abuse and abandon
them; girls are sometimes raped. But more and more divided families are
calculating that the risk is worth it. Once the children reach the
border, some parents are instructing them to surrender to once-feared
U.S. Border Patrol agents as soon as they can.
Susana,
a factory worker in Fredericksburg, Va., said she heard last month that
minors would be “saved” and let go if they reached the United States.
She said she paid
$2,800 for guides to bring her daughter, 15, from Honduras across
Guatemala and Mexico — where they were expected to “throw her in the
river.” The girl was quickly picked up by U.S. agents and is now in a
federally-run secure shelter in Texas.
“She
was only five when I left her, and she has suffered a lot. Everyone was
saying this is the time to send for your kids, the government is
letting them go, so I decided
to do it,” said Susana, an illegal immigrant who asked that her full
name not be used.
Susana
said her daughter calls her often from the shelter, where she shares a
room with six other girls and takes English classes. Meanwhile, social
workers have sent
Susana lists of questions and documents to fill out while she readies a
bedroom for the daughter she has not seen in a decade. “They want to
know about my income and my house and what school she will go to,”
Susana said. “They say I should be patient and not
to worry, soon I will be her guardian.”
Some
undocumented parents, reluctant to allow their children to travel
alone, have tried to go home and accompany them back — with disastrous
results. Last winter, a house
cleaner in Hyattsville, Md. saved up as much money as she could and
returned to El Salvador for her two teenaged daughters, who were being
abused by male relatives and harassed by gangs.
According
to the woman’s mother, the smugglers demanded more than she could pay,
and she was worried about the three younger children she had left back
in the United States.
So in March, she reluctantly left her older girls behind once more and
tried to sneak back into the States. She was caught at the border and
now is in federal detention in Texas, unable to care for any of her
children.
Even
when long-separated families are successfully united, they often face
daunting adjustment problems. There are stepfathers and younger siblings
the newly arrived teenagers
have never met. There are language barriers and old feelings of anger,
jealousy and abandonment. There are crowded apartments and long workdays
that offer little chance for special attention. And often, there are
the added tensions and uncertainty of the parents
being illegal, too.
“In
many cases, things turn out to be a disaster,” said Dilsia Molina, a
counselor at La Clinica del Pueblo in the District who helps dozens of
immigrant women with family
problems. “I tell all the women that when a child arrives from home
after a long time apart, it is like getting pregnant and giving birth
all over again.”
Young
said she worries that the speeded-up screening process will miss
potential problems with sponsors, such as histories of abuse or crime.
For example, she noted that
proposed guardians are no longer being required to provide
fingerprints. “We are not pro-detention, but this does create concerns,”
she said.
Another
problem is the lack of lawyers available to represent arriving minors
who may qualify for deportation relief, asylum or special visas. The
White House announced
this week that it is setting up an emergency program with funds for
about 300 lawyers, but Young said far more are needed.
One
Salvadoran woman in Prince George’s County left her daughter as a small
child a decade ago. Last year, the budding adolescent was sent north by
grandparents who feared
she would be abused by gangs. In Texas, scared and abandoned by
smugglers, she turned herself into the Border Patrol; after several
months in custody, she was sent to live with a mom she barely knew.
“She
seemed more like a sister than a mother,” said the girl, now 14, who
can manage only a few words of English. The mother, a store cashier, sat
close to her on a sofa,
looking pensive as the daughter recounted her ordeal in the desert.
Both face possible deportation, but both clearly cherish their new
relationship. “I was desperately worried about her, but it was
definitely worth the risk,” the mother confided with a shy
glance at the girl. “She is everything to me.”
For more information, go to: www.beverlyhillsimmigrationlaw.com
No comments:
Post a Comment