More than two dozen children, a number of them currently detained at migrant family jails in Pennsylvania and Texas, are facing imminent deportation along with their parents, NBC News reports. All are families who were prevented from asking for protections under the Trump administration’s asylum ban and subsequently refused to be separated by Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE).
But while that cruel asylum ban was thrown out in the court, these families, some detained for over 400 days now, continue to face deportation. ICE doesn’t have to separate or continue jailing these families. ICE doesn’t have to deport these families either. ICE is choosing to make these 28 children and their families suffer.
“It would be fundamentally unfair to deport these children based upon rules and policies that have since been declared unlawful,” more than 60 organizations said in a letter to the Trump administration. “For many of these children, deportation is a death sentence.” NBC News reports that one child, an 11-year-old named Juan David, wrote in a letter that he fears being killed if his family is deported.
“They asked me why I am afraid to return to my country. I'm afraid that the gangsters will hurt me, that they will kill me and my mom,” Juan David said according to the report. “That's why I ask God to soften the hearts of the asylum officers and that I can go live with my aunt and uncle in New York. I want to have a normal life, make friends, go to a normal school, be with my family, living a normal life. Here, I always have a headache and anxiety."
The boy has been detained with his mom at a migrant family jail for over a year now. The Trump administration horrifically gave detained parents a “choice” amid the pandemic this year that was really no choice at all: either either agree to have their kids released without them, or remain jailed together indefinitely. No families agreed to be separated because no family wants to be separated.
“In July, a federal judge ruled the children should be released from the centers, potentially triggering separations, but later that order was deemed ‘unenforceable,’” the report continued. ICE has felt unaccountable to no one and abused detained people. Alexa, a child who was jailed with her mom for nearly a year, said in a video from Human Rights First that detention staff commonly ignored requests for medical attention. "They treated us less than. They did horrible things to us in that detention center."
These families also have support from U.S. senators including Bob Casey and Cory Booker, who wrote in a letter that “[t]hese families fled unspeakable violence in their home countries. For many of these children, deportation is tantamount to a death sentence.” They’re calling on the Trump administration to halt these deportations as advocates continue fighting for them in court. “DHS is deporting people based on orders of removal that were ILLEGALLY issued,” immigration attorney Amy Maldonado tweeted.
Among those waiting for a last-minute miracle is 14-year-old Katherin. “I don’t have the warmth of family anymore, I feel alone and sad because of everything that has happened in this place,” she said in the letter released by Casey and Booker. “I see so many people who arrive and leave and my mom and I remain here detained.
“Our lives are also in danger because of so many people who are infected with COVID-19,” she continued. “It hurts me to see that many kids like me are locked up even more because of COVID-19. They spend more time locked up in their rooms. Please, I implore you, I beg you, help us leave this place as soon as possible. I don’t want to spend another Christmas locked up here.”