Washington, D.C. –
Following reports of renewed family separations at U.S. immigration detention facilities, outside of immigration courts, at family detention centers, and subsequent to “wellness checks” conducted at unaccompanied children’s homes by U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE), Kids in Need of Defense (KIND) urges the administration to abandon practices that mark new and varied forms of family separation. These developments come seven years after the first Trump Administration’s Zero Tolerance policy and a federal court ruling that ordered an end to the policy and required the U.S. government to reunite forcibly separated families. During Zero Tolerance, nearly 4,000 children were separated from their parents, many of whom were quickly deported.
“The administration is unleashing a new nightmare on families in the United States, tearing them apart in cruel, frightening, and sudden ways, including families with U.S. citizen children, and those who are longstanding community members,” said KIND President Wendy Young. “Under Zero Tolerance, most children were separated from their parents at the border. Now, many of the separations are occurring inside the United States – often in local communities. The administration is separating families through a variety of enforcement acts: Parents are being apprehended by ICE at courthouses, in raids, and following “wellness checks.” Accounts indicate that, in many cases, these checks result in children’s separation from their parents and other loved ones and placement in government detention due to immigration enforcement actions against those family members rather than child wellness concerns.”
In response to the most recent family separations, KIND is urging the administration to:
- Reenvision “wellness checks” that, as performed by immigration enforcement personnel, appear to have oftentimes resulted in needless family separations and left children more vulnerable to trafficking and exploitation, not less. To uphold the safety of unaccompanied children released from government custody, the administration should instead prioritize the provision of attorneys that frequently represent children’s best line of defense against mistreatment.
- Ensure DHS only separates a child from their caregiver after a trained child welfare professional has deemed it to be in the child’s best interest. To do this, DHS should expand the Office of Health Security Child Well-Being Program to ensure their specialists’ capacity to also assess interior separations. Whenever a separation occurs, the government must create a process to allow the child or parent to challenge the separation.
- Fully enforce the ICE Parental Interest Directive so that when a parent or legal guardian is arrested or detained for a civil immigration proceeding, they can maintain visitation with their child, coordinate their care, and participate in any related court or child welfare proceedings.
- End all ICE initiatives that use information gathered from the Office of Refugee Resettlement (ORR) to target families, sponsors, or unaccompanied children for immigration enforcement. Information shared by ORR with the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) should be narrowly circumscribed and governed by child safety considerations.
- In collaboration with the interagency stakeholder working group, DHS and ORR should develop clear processes and mechanisms for expeditiously reunifying separated children and parents/legal guardians where the initial reason for the separation has been resolved or successfully challenged. Mechanisms should prioritize appropriate, case management-based alternatives to detention (ATDs) for families.
- Uphold full transparency before Congress and the public regarding the nature and volume of family separations both at the U.S. border and within the nation’s interior, including those resulting from ICE “wellness checks.”
KIND’s recommendations are rooted in the organization’s response to Zero Tolerance separations and the work done over many years to reunite families.
“We cannot allow the extraordinary cruelty and harm inflicted by family separation to happen all over again, and in new and insidious ways,” Young said. “Family unity remains a core value and one of the most important ways to ensure children are safe. We cannot relive the national nightmare of family separation.”
KIND currently co-chairs the Global Family Reunification Network’s (FRUN) Working Group on Unaccompanied and Separated Children. Launched in 2020, FRUN is the first global platform devoted to promoting and facilitating greater access to family reunification for refugees and other beneficiaries of international protection.
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Media Contact: Megan McKenna, mmckenna@supportkind.org, 202-631-9990