{"id":597717,"date":"2018-06-29T08:00:05","date_gmt":"2018-06-29T14:00:05","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/?p=597717"},"modified":"2018-06-29T12:51:23","modified_gmt":"2018-06-29T18:51:23","slug":"in-el-paso-shelter-undocumented-immigrant-parents-now-know-where-their-children-are","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/2018\/06\/in-el-paso-shelter-undocumented-immigrant-parents-now-know-where-their-children-are\/","title":{"rendered":"In El Paso shelter, undocumented immigrant parents now know where their children are"},"content":{"rendered":"<div id=\"attachment_597723\"  class=\"wp-caption module image alignnone\" style=\"max-width: 771px;\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-large wp-image-597723\" src=\"http:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/06\/Casa_Vides_Annunciation_House_ANKLE_MONITOR_IPA_TT-771x517.jpg\" alt=\"Ankle monitor\" width=\"771\" height=\"517\" srcset=\"https:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/06\/Casa_Vides_Annunciation_House_ANKLE_MONITOR_IPA_TT-771x517.jpg 771w, https:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/06\/Casa_Vides_Annunciation_House_ANKLE_MONITOR_IPA_TT-336x225.jpg 336w, https:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/06\/Casa_Vides_Annunciation_House_ANKLE_MONITOR_IPA_TT-768x515.jpg 768w, https:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/06\/Casa_Vides_Annunciation_House_ANKLE_MONITOR_IPA_TT-1170x784.jpg 1170w, https:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/06\/Casa_Vides_Annunciation_House_ANKLE_MONITOR_IPA_TT.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\">An ankle monitor on Miriam, who did not want to release her last name, during a press conference at the Casa Vides Annunciation House immigrant shelter on Monday in El Paso.<\/p><\/div>\n<p>EL PASO, Texas \u2014 On Monday afternoon at a migrant shelter in this border city, Mario, an undocumented Honduran immigrant who was separated from his daughter, struggled to tell reporters how all he wanted to do was wish her happy birthday and ask for her forgiveness.<\/p>\n<p>On Thursday, he said he&#8217;s had the chance to do both after finally learning his 10-year-old daughter&#8217;s location: She&#8217;s somewhere in El Paso, he said, and\u00a0she\u2019s safe.<\/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\/28\/undocumented-immigrant-parents-border-children-el-paso-shelter-separated\/\" 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>\u201cI said, \u2018Please forgive me for letting them separate us,\u2019\u201d he said. \u201cBut she\u2019s a smart girl, and she understood that the most important thing is that we\u2019re going to be able to be together.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Mario was one of 32 undocumented parents who had been separated from their children after being apprehended or turning themselves in to federal border officers under a zero-tolerance policy on undocumented border crossers that&#8217;s led to more than 2,300 children being separated from their parents.<\/p>\n<p>Ruben Garcia, the director of the El Paso-based Annunciation House where the migrants were received, said the group was among the first to be released after President Donald Trump reversed course and halted family separations through an executive order.<\/p>\n<p>Some, like Mario, didn\u2019t even know where their children were after arriving at the shelter.<\/p>\n<p>Garcia said about a dozen parents from that group remain at the shelter, and\u00a0all of them now know where their children are \u2014 although not all have been able to speak to them. Some of the other parents are trying to connect\u00a0with family members in the United States who were likely named the children&#8217;s designated sponsors\u00a0when the families were caught and separated.<\/p>\n<p>But before he can be reunited with his daughter,\u00a0Mario\u00a0\u2014 who asked to be identified only by his first name to avoid the possibility of jeopardizing\u00a0his asylum claim \u2014 needs<strong>\u00a0<\/strong>the Honduran government to fax a copy of his birth certificate to the legal representatives who are helping him while he\u2019s at the shelter.<!--more--><\/p>\n<p>Garcia said the birth certificate is one of the documents that the Office of Refugee Resettlement, which has custody of the children, asks to see before approving reunifications, but those aren&#8217;t returned to the parents after they are released from federal custody.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cAnd so when you talk to ORR, you say, \u2018ICE took my birth certificate,\u2019 and they\u2019ll say that ICE and ORR don\u2019t talk to each other,\u201d Garcia said. \u201cIt\u2019s just a problematic system.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>A spokesperson with the ICE field office in El Paso said\u00a0the agency\u00a0does not keep identifying documents once an immigrant is released from its custody.<\/p>\n<p>Garcia said most of the parents who were apprehended and separated will likely be reunited with their children wherever the designated sponsor is located because that&#8217;s a faster option than starting the process over to bring the parent and child together.<\/p>\n<p>To locate their children, the parents have been reaching out to the designated sponsors, who then have to connect them with the ORR social worker in charge of the child&#8217;s case.<\/p>\n<p><strong>&#8220;<\/strong>They call the [sponsor] and he or she gives the parent the name and phone number of the social worker,&#8221; Garcia said. \u201cThat doesn\u2019t tell me where my kid is, that just tells me who the social worker is. I call the social worker, and that\u2019s when I find out my kid is in Chicago or New York or wherever.\u201d<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\/28\/undocumented-immigrant-parents-border-children-el-paso-shelter-separated\/\"><\/script><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>After being released from custody, the parents have learned the whereabouts of their children, a shelter director said. But there are more hurdles before they&#8217;re reunited.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":597723,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[11],"tags":[140,234],"class_list":["post-597717","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\/597717","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=597717"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/597717\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/597723"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=597717"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=597717"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=597717"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}