This is what’s really happening to kids at the border

canada goose coats on sale border have been all over the news recently. protection from persecution in their home countries. But the coverage has drummed up its share of confusion, despite multiplying “explainers” here are some from The Washington Post, the New York Times and Mother Jones. The situation remains complicated, messy and often misunderstood. canada goose coats on sale

canada goose coats The most important of the recent stories is the separation of children from their parents at the border. This is a new policy of the Trump administration and, notwithstanding the president’s tweet about it over the weekend, no law compels it. canada goose canada goose outlet ottawa coats

canada goose uk outlet When a parent arrives at the border with a child, whether they canada goose coats uk are apprehended by Border Patrol or seek canada goose outlet in toronto asylum at the port of entry, the administration separates the parent from the child and takes both into custody. Parents who arrive between ports of entry are separated from their children and sent for criminal prosecution. They are housed in Justice Department criminal facilities until they serve their sentence, then transferred to Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) custody and placed canada goose outlet 80 off into immigration proceedings. canada goose uk outlet

Canada Goose Parka However, even canada goose outlet belgium when families lawfully present themselves at a port, the administration still separates canada goose parka uk children from parents. The children enter the canada goose outlet kokemuksia custody of the Department of Health and Human Service’s Office of Refugee Resettlement (ORR) and are placed into immigration proceedings. Many canada goose outlet reviews are babies and toddlers. This canada goose outlet report by the American Academy of Pediatrics provides evidence that the forced separation has grave consequences for both parents canada goose jacket outlet store and children. Canada Goose Parka

Canada Goose online The administration has offered a number of explanations for the separations, but officials keep on returning to https://www.getcanadagooseoutlet.com a common theme that this policy is designed to discourage parents desperately seeking safety from persecution and danger from bringing their children canada goose outlet uk sale to the United States. In other words, this policy is designed to be punitive. Homeland Security Secretary Kirstjen Nielsen has insisted that separating children when parents are prosecuted for crossing the border is no different than separating children from canada goose jacket outlet sale parents who have been criminally convicted and sent canada goose outlet online to prison. Canada Goose online

canada goose factory sale This badly distorts the facts. For one thing, the parents haven’t been convicted they have just been charged and most have the valid defense that they are legitimately fleeing persecution. law. When Nielsen and Sessions say that families who do not want to be separated should cross at points of entry, they are ignoring how families who have done this, and asked for asylum, have been turned away, while others have been separated even while attempting to go through the appropriate legal process. canada goose factory sale

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canada goose uk black friday ORR is taking on an unprecedented role. Historically, it has mostly been responsible for older children, who arrive at the border unaccompanied by parent. law and child welfare best practices, ORR tries to release the children in their care to a family member preferably a parent. Until now, it held kids temporarily while working to find an appropriate sponsor who would take care of the child as he or she canada goose outlet in vancouver went through the immigration process. Only a small proportion of ORR placements remained in ORR custody. canada goose uk black friday

canadian goose jacket Now, the children are younger, and with parents in detention, it canada goose outlet toronto location will be much harder to find safe environments for kids, especially as ORR has announced new procedures that make it more difficult for undocumented parents to sponsor their own children (See this timeline of policy changes that affect children seeking asylum). This means that it will be harder to find arrangements for children, and more of those arrangements are likely to be abusive. canadian goose jacket

Canada Goose sale Parents whose children are taken from them at the border are not told how to find them, communicate with them or goose outlet canada reunify with them. Even ICE and ORR do not track the whereabouts of separated children in any systemic manner. Parents can eventually call a hotline after they serve any criminal sentence and are transferred from DOJ to ICE custody. That hotline might be able to tell them where their child is being detained or to whom they have been released, and may be able to facilitate a phone call, but that hinges on the cooperation of detention center officials. Communication is rare and often insufficient even when it does occur (it’s hard for toddlers to talk on the phone). Canada Goose sale

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Canada Goose Online Both the parents and their children face deportation, but the children are left to fend for themselves, without an adult who knows anything about them and their situation. Some children are too young to speak, much less explain the social and political basis of their asylum claim, and the immigration system is incapable of adjudicating their cases. This contributes to the overwhelming backlog in the immigration courts, as one family case becomes two or three or four individual cases. If either or both the parents and kids are deported, they may be canada goose outlet eu deported separately; children, including infants, can be sent back to their home country and turned over to officials there. In these cases, reunification is next to impossible, and children’s welfare and even lives may be in grave danger. Canada Goose Online

buy canada goose jacket The problem of ‘missing’ children is poorly understood buy canada goose jacket

Canada Goose Jackets Recently, a story of nearly 1,500 migrant children supposedly lost by the administration has caught on like wildfire in the press and in social media. The children that ORR failed to find are not the same children being separated from their parents. They were then released to a sponsor canada goose parka outlet typically a parent or other close relative. Canada Goose Jackets

canada goose black friday sale At a Senate hearing in April 2018, Steven Wagner, the HHS official who oversees ORR, testified that the federal agency had lost track of 1,475 of these children. On closer examination, though, it is less clear how many of these children are actually “missing.” What Wagner actually said was that for those approximately 1,500 kids, ORR phone calls did not lead to actual conversations with sponsors. It is possible that many, and perhaps the overwhelming majority, of these kids are precisely where they should be with their parents. canada goose black friday sale

cheap Canada Goose In canada goose outlet 2015 short, the problem is not that kids are missing, or that 1,500 sponsors didn’t return ORR’s phone calls. It is that children who are with their parents are being separated and that children who are truly unaccompanied are only infrequently offered vital follow up support services, including access to attorneys. ORR is not offering the services that would help children and sponsors to stay in touch. cheap Canada Goose

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buy canada goose jacket cheap Finally, new reports have surfaced of alleged abuses of unaccompanied children by Border Patrol. The American Civil Liberties Union of San Diego released thousands of documents obtained from the DHS Office for Civil Rights and Civil Liberties through a Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) request. buy canada goose jacket cheap

canada goose clearance canada goose factory outlet toronto location sale The reports are mostly allegations DHS did not release the results of most investigations. But there is no doubt that Border Patrol is not a suitable canada goose outlet washington dc custodian canada goose outlet shop for children; that’s why the law requires prompt transfer of custody to ORR. On the ground, transfers are frequently long delayed, leaving kids to canada goose outlet uk sit around for days and days, crowded and idle, in cold law enforcement “hold rooms” universally called hieleras (iceboxes), because canada goose jacket outlet uk the canada goose outlet buffalo air conditioning runs so high rather than being housed in appropriate child friendly facilities. canada goose clearance sale

Canada Goose Coats On Sale Hold rooms, which have no beds, no showers, and nothing to canada goose premium outlet do, are not supposed to house children for long periods of time indeed, they are not supposed to provide more than the briefest detention for adults. However, the administration seems less interested in improving the conditions for these children than in removing their protections, and making deportation without due process easier. Canada Goose Coats On Sale

canada goose uk shop Michelle Bran is director of Migrant Rights and Justice at the Women’s Refugee Commission. canada goose uk shop

uk canada goose outlet Margo Schlanger is professor of law at the University of Michigan, and served as head of the DHS Office for Civil Rights and Civil Liberties in 2010 and 2011 uk canada goose outlet.