{"id":595447,"date":"2018-06-25T07:28:10","date_gmt":"2018-06-25T13:28:10","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/?p=595447"},"modified":"2018-06-25T14:31:53","modified_gmt":"2018-06-25T20:31:53","slug":"confusion-tension-roil-border-as-feds-try-to-reunify-immigrant-families","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/2018\/06\/confusion-tension-roil-border-as-feds-try-to-reunify-immigrant-families\/","title":{"rendered":"Confusion, tension roil border as feds try to reunify immigrant families"},"content":{"rendered":"<div id=\"attachment_595451\"  class=\"wp-caption module image alignnone\" style=\"max-width: 771px;\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-large wp-image-595451\" src=\"http:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/06\/L3A0710-771x517.jpg\" alt=\"Casa Vides Annunciation House\" width=\"771\" height=\"517\" srcset=\"https:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/06\/L3A0710-771x517.jpg 771w, https:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/06\/L3A0710-336x225.jpg 336w, https:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/06\/L3A0710-768x515.jpg 768w, https:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/06\/L3A0710-1170x784.jpg 1170w, https:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/06\/L3A0710.jpg 1250w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 771px) 100vw, 771px\" \/><p class=\"wp-media-credit\">Ivan Pierre Aguirre \/ for The Texas Tribune<\/p><p class=\"wp-caption-text\">Immigrants arrive at the Casa Vides Annunciation House shelter after being released on Sunday in El Paso.<\/p><\/div>\n<p dir=\"ltr\">BROWNSVILLE, Texas \u2014 President Trump suggested Sunday the United States should block people fleeing violently volatile countries from seeking asylum here and deport any non-citizen trying to cross the border &#8212; without due process.<\/p>\n<p dir=\"ltr\">\u201cWe cannot allow all of these people to invade our Country,\u201d Trump tweeted. \u201cWhen somebody comes in, we must immediately, with no Judges or Court Cases, bring them back from where they came. Our system is a mockery to good immigration policy and Law and Order.\u201d<\/p>\n<p dir=\"ltr\">His statements, made in a series of tweets, drew immediate rebukes. They came days after his administration hastily cobbled together a reversal of a recent policy<strong>\u00a0<\/strong>that has left thousands of undocumented immigrant children detained in federal facilities separately from their parents.<\/p>\n<p dir=\"ltr\">And despite federal authorities\u2019 assertions late Saturday that there are plans to reunify many of the 2,053 separated children with relatives, confusion and tension continued mounting along the U.S.-Mexico\u00a0border.<\/p>\n<aside class=\"module align-left half type-aside\">\n<h3>About this article<\/h3>\n<p>This article originally appeared in\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/www.texastribune.org\/2018\/06\/24\/undocumented-children-separated-confusion-federal-promises-Trump-tweet\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">The Texas Tribune<\/a>,\u00a0a nonpartisan, nonprofit media organization that informs Texans and engages with them about public policy, politics, government and statewide issues.<\/p>\n<\/aside>\n<p dir=\"ltr\">\u201cWe cannot simply take them at their word, especially when we are getting conflicting messages,\u201d said Efr\u00e9n C. Olivares, a racial and economic justice director for the Texas Civil Rights Project in McAllen.<\/p>\n<p dir=\"ltr\">U.S. Customs and Border Protection said 522 separated children have already been reunited, though it was unclear whether they were returned to their parents or another relative or adult. More than 2,053 separated children remain in federal custody, and federal officials said 16 children were expected to be reunited with their parents by Sunday evening.<\/p>\n<p dir=\"ltr\">A downtown El Paso shelter named Annunciation House, which has taken in immigrants for decades, was preparing Sunday for what shelter Director Ruben Garcia said was likely one of<strong>\u00a0<\/strong>the first groups of parents to be released by Customs and Border Protection after having their charges for illegal entry dismissed since the recent zero-tolerance policy began.<\/p>\n<p dir=\"ltr\">But after they are processed and given an orientation by the center\u2019s legal coordinator, the daunting challenge of locating their kids begins.<\/p>\n<p dir=\"ltr\">\u201cWe do not know exactly the people who are coming to us, we do not know where their children are, so none of us can answer that question for you,\u201d Taylor Levy, the shelter\u2019s legal coordinator, told reporters during a Sunday afternoon press conference. \u201cNo one really knows where their children are \u2013 except for the government. [It] somehow knows.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Some of those parents\u00a0who crossed the border in the El Paso sector have since been transferred to federal detention centers\u00a0other parts of the nation while\u00a0their children have remained on the border.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cI received a call, for example, from an attorney in Denver [Saturday],&#8221; Levy said. \u201cShe\u2019s been representing a woman who\u2019s now been detained for over two months. She spoke to her 5-year old son for the first time yesterday and that 5-year-old son is being housed somewhere in El Paso.\u201d<!--more--><\/p>\n<p dir=\"ltr\">She said immigrants are given a government phone number to call, and \u201cyou wait on hold \u2026 and then they take information from you and that\u2019s about it. That is the same information if you are calling and you are a lawyer, if you are calling and you are a social worker, if you are calling and trying to advocate on behalf of these families.\u201d<\/p>\n<p dir=\"ltr\">Immigration and Customs Enforcement this weekend designated the Port Isabel Service Processing Center as the primary place for detained families, many of whom fled Central American countries mired in gang violence, to be reunited and returned to the countries from which they came.<\/p>\n<p dir=\"ltr\">Journalists were not allowed inside the Port Isabel center Sunday afternoon.<\/p>\n<p dir=\"ltr\">Federal officials said in a statement released late Saturday that when undocumented children are detained and sent to the Health and Human Services Office of Refugee Resettlement, information about their parents or guardians is provided by Homeland Security \u201cto the extent possible.\u201d Authorities also said they are working across federal agencies to \u201cfoster communications\u201d to reunite separated family members through a \u201cwell-established\u201d process.<\/p>\n<p dir=\"ltr\">But in McAllen, Olivares said the Civil Rights Project has interviewed more than 375 immigrant families, and \u201cEveryone we have interviewed has not been told any of that information.\u201d<\/p>\n<p dir=\"ltr\">Also on Sunday, CNN <a href=\"https:\/\/www.cnn.com\/2018\/06\/24\/us\/boy-missing-from-texas-facility-southwest-key\/index.html\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">reported<\/a> that a teenage boy ran away from Southwest Key Program\u2019s Casa Padre shelter, a converted Walmart in Brownsville that houses more than 1,400 migrant children. An <a href=\"https:\/\/apps.texastribune.org\/features\/2018\/texas-migrant-children-shelters\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">investigation<\/a> by The Texas Tribune found that inspectors in recent years identified hundreds of violations at nonprofit Southwest Key\u2019s 16 Texas facilities, including 13 at Casa Padre.<\/p>\n<p dir=\"ltr\">U.S. Sen. Elizabeth Warren, D-Mass., visited a McAllen immigration center on Sunday and <a href=\"https:\/\/www.facebook.com\/cnninternational\/videos\/10156489275764641\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">told reporters<\/a> afterward that children 12 and older were not being kept with their parents. She said people were sleeping on concrete floors and in cages.<\/p>\n<p dir=\"ltr\">\u201cThere\u2019s just no other way to describe it,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n<p dir=\"ltr\">Warren, a frequent foe of Trump\u2019s, said that she spoke with some of the detainees with the help of an interpreter. She said that one Central American told her that after she gave a police officer a drink of water in her home country, gangs assumed she was helping law enforcement.<\/p>\n<p dir=\"ltr\">\u201cSo she sold everything she has and she and her 4-year-old son fled the country,\u201d Warren said. \u201cShe believes she would not survive if she went back.\u201d<\/p>\n<p dir=\"ltr\">Meanwhile, the president\u2019s social media comments Sunday drew the ire of of civil rights activists, who plan a protest in Brownsville later this week.<\/p>\n<p dir=\"ltr\">\u201cWhat President Trump has suggested here is both illegal and unconstitutional,\u201d said Omar Jadwat, director of the American Civil Liberties Union\u2019s Immigrants\u2019 Rights Project. \u201cAny official who has sworn an oath to uphold the Constitution and laws should disavow it unequivocally.\u201d<\/p>\n<p dir=\"ltr\">In his tweets, Trump suggested the unfolding crisis is the fault of Democrats and said\u00a0the country\u2019s immigration policy is the laughingstock of the world and unfair to \u201cpeople who have gone through the system legally.\u201d He said his administration is doing better than his two predecessors, Democrat Barack Obama and Republican George W. Bush.<\/p>\n<p dir=\"ltr\">\u201cImmigration must be based on merit \u2014 we need people who will help to Make America Great Again!\u201d Trump wrote in a nod to his successful 2016 campaign slogan.<\/p>\n<p><em>Freelance journalists\u00a0Ivan Pierre Aguirre, Rey Leal and Andres Torres and Texas Tribune editor Matthew Watkins contributed to this report.<\/em><script async src=\"https:\/\/cdn.texastribune.org\/pixel\/dot.min.29c708b3d0da5d17a725.js\" integrity=\"sha384-8Xwf\/TlQnmHiajg1t3dn8w4qlF1rmV33o5NAQVXYu0T2q3rHV5579zrSmRjh+XnM\" crossorigin=\"anonymous\" data-tt-canonical=\"https:\/\/www.texastribune.org\/2018\/06\/24\/undocumented-children-separated-confusion-federal-promises-Trump-tweet\/\"><\/script><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>As an El Paso shelter prepared to take in undocumented immigrants separated from their children, President Trump&#8217;s tweets calling for deportations without due process drew rebukes.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":595451,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[11],"tags":[140,234],"class_list":["post-595447","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-news-and-analysis","tag-border-and-immigration","tag-children"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/595447","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=595447"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/595447\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/595451"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=595447"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=595447"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=595447"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}