Children have been deported hours after arriving to the U.S., sometimes without notification to family back home

A young migrant boy walks with a caregiver at a facility in Texas' Rio Grande Valley. CREDIT: AP Photo/Eric Gay

We’ve recently told you about how the Trump administration has been swiftly deporting ([link removed]) hundreds of migrant children since the start of the pandemic. For decades, children who arrive at the U.S. border alone have been placed in government shelters, where they are cared for until their release to a family member or other sponsor. Many file for asylum protections because of violence they face at home.

But in the last few months, children have been deported hours after arriving to the U.S., sometimes without notification to family back home. The Trump administration has essentially blocked immigration at the border under Title 42 of the U.S. Code, which bans entry of foreigners if there is a "serious danger of the introduction of … disease into the United States."

Now, the Trump administration is facing the first court challenge ([link removed]) to its new child deportation practice after the American Civil Liberties Union and other organizations filed a lawsuit on behalf of a 16-year-old boy from Honduras. According to the lawsuit ([link removed]) , the boy, identified as J.B.B.C., experienced persecution from gang members after he witnessed a killing. He arrived at the U.S. border June 4. Instead of being placed in a shelter for migrant children, border officers checked him into a hotel to await a flight back to Honduras.

“J.B.B.C.’s imminent expulsion is arbitrary, capricious, and contrary to law because it also departs from the agency’s existing policies for the processing, care, custody, and removal of unaccompanied children,” the lawsuit reads.

Last week, U.S. District Judge Emmet Sullivan blocked the teenager’s deportation. "We believe (Title 42) is ultimately a pretext for doing what the administration has always wanted to do – close the border to children and asylum seekers," ACLU attorney Lee Gelernt told NPR ([link removed]) after Sullivan's order ([link removed]) .

Since March, the El Paso Times reports ([link removed]) , the Trump administration has expelled 2,175 unaccompanied children.

Read the ACLU lawsuit here. ([link removed])

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Activists supportive of DACA hold a banner in front of the US Supreme Court in Washington, DC, on June 18. (Photo by NICHOLAS KAMM/AFP via Getty Images)


** DEVELOPMENTS WE’RE WATCHING
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The U.S. Supreme Court rules against the Trump administration in its DACA case. In a long-awaited decision that effects the fate of nearly 700,000 young undocumented immigrants, the justices ruled Thursday that the Trump administration cannot immediately dismantle the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals program, an Obama-era policy that allowed immigrants brought to the country at a young age to remain in the U.S., shielding them from deportation. About 27,000 DACA recipients are health care workers ([link removed]) on the front lines of the COVID-19 pandemic. President Donald Trump moved to end DACA in 2017, but his decision was quickly challenged and ultimately landed on the Supreme Court’s docket. The Trump administration argued that DACA circumvented immigration laws because it was created under an executive order without input from Congress. But in the Supreme Court’s opinion
([link removed]) , the justices noted that the government violated a federal law ([link removed]) when it tried to rescind the program.

The latest on COVID-19 outbreaks inside U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement detention. More than 900 immigrants currently in ICE custody have tested positive for COVID-19 as of Thursday. In total, 2,165 out of 7,364 detainees tested have been infected with the virus, according to statistics on ICE’s website ([link removed]) . In addition, 45 employees have also tested positive. Last week, asylum seekers inside an Arizona ICE detention center said they were forced to clean the facility. In a letter ([link removed]) sent to the Florence Immigrant & Refugee Rights Project in Arizona, detainees held at the La Palma Correctional Center said they were forced to clean trash from an area where sick detainees were being treated. Another detainee said he was “asked to clean the feces-covered cell of a mentally ill detainee without gloves.”
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** 3 THINGS WE’RE READING
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1. She came here on a guest worker visa but was laid off as COVID-19 took its toll on businesses. Now she can’t afford to stay in the U.S. or buy a ticket home. (ProPublica ([link removed]) )

More than 5,000 people who came here on J-1 visas are now stranded in the U.S. after losing their jobs amid the COVID-19 shutdown. Among them is L., a 23-year-old culinary school graduate who took out a $10,000 loan in the Philippines to pay for costs associated with her visa. She recently was laid off from her job setting up the breakfast buffet at a luxury resort in Virginia.

The kicker: More than two months after losing her job, L. remains unemployed, passing her days in the apartment she has shared with four other J-1 visa holders. She can no longer afford to send support checks to her parents back home. She can no longer make payments on the $8,900 in debt that remains on what she borrowed to enter the J-1 program and come to the U.S. L., who used to work in a Japanese restaurant in the Philippines, preparing bowls of ramen noodles, now survives on vegetables, canned goods and packaged ramen from a food bank. “If only I could turn back time,” she said, “I would not come here knowing that this would happen.”

2. An immigrant with diabetes sued for her release from ICE custody. Instead, she got COVID-19. (The Guardian ([link removed]) )

Marisol Mendoza is being held at the Eloy Detention Center in Arizona. She’s diabetic, and in the early days of the pandemic, she sued ICE and the private contractor that runs Eloy, CoreCivic, for her release “given the threat of the virus and her pre-existing condition.” Two and a half weeks later, she tested positive for the virus and has been in medical isolation since June 6.

The kicker: In another filing on Mendoza’s behalf, Dr. Robert B Greifinger warned: “The only way to protect Ms. Mendoza is to release her from detention.” He said ICE was “very unlikely” to provide her sufficient care – particularly given the facility’s growing numbers of infections. Isolating her was detrimental to her mental health, Greifinger said. New data released by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) on Tuesday showed COVID-19 patients with underlying conditions, including diabetes, are 12 times more likely to die of the virus.

3. Undocumented families aren’t eligible for coronavirus aid. Several organizations are stepping in to help. (The Philadelphia Inquirer ([link removed]) )

More than 40 immigrant advocacy groups have created the PA Immigrant Relief Fund. Organizers aim to raise $4 million by June 30. The money will be disbursed among 5,000 immigrants with one-time cash payments of $800. About 50,000 undocumented immigrants live in the Philadelphia area.

The kicker: “We all decided to take it on because it was necessary, and nobody else was doing it,” said Sundrop Carter, executive director of the Pennsylvania Immigration and Citizenship Coalition, based in Philadelphia. “Congress made a very intentional decision to exclude people in the middle of a pandemic. … It basically told the immigrant community, ‘You’re worth nothing.’ ”

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