Judge’s deportation ruling offers reprieve to immigrant families

Many Texas residents are aware that the federal government has been widely criticized for its policy of swiftly deporting reunited families of undocumented immigrants. The American Civil Liberties Union has filed a lawsuit seeking to give undocumented families more time to prepare their asylum claims or legal defenses, and the district court judge hearing the cased ruled on July 16 that deportations should cease temporarily. Attorneys representing both the ACLU and the government will now have the opportunity to argue whether or not the order should be extended permanently.

The authorities have been working to reunite detained undocumented immigrant children with their parents. However, government figures reveal that the parents of 71 children have not been located and the parents of hundreds of other children have still not been identified. According to official estimates, more than 2,500 children between the ages of 5 and 17 were separated from their parents at the Mexican border by U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents.

Reuniting immigrant families is made more difficult by swift deportation hearings. According to a senior ICE official, 1,609 of the parents detained remain in immigration detention facilities, which means that the parents of hundreds of detained children have already been either deported or released.

Many of the immigrants arriving at the Mexican border are attempting to escape upheaval in various parts of the Caribbean and Latin America. Attorneys familiar with the nation’s immigration laws could help undocumented immigrants in such situations to remain in the United States by filing asylum application on their behalf and by keeping them apprised of current developments in this volatile area of the law.

Source: CNN, “Federal judge pauses deportations of reunited families”, Tal Kopan and Laura Jarrett, July 16, 2018