Immigration news moves swiftly, pulling the public’s attention in new directions every day.

This month, the Supreme Court announced that the government can enforce new rules that would drastically curb asylum-seekers at the border. In August, the government released its new “public charge” rule that will bar legal immigrants using public benefits from becoming permanent residents. Earlier this summer, lawyers and pediatricians visited Border Patrol facilities and observed sick children with no regular access to showers or clean clothes.

One news story in particular – family separation – has been overshadowed by the avalanche of immigration news. More than a year ago, the Trump administration separated nearly 3,000 children from asylum-seeking parents at the border. Most have been reunited. The story dominated the news last summer.

But for these families, their trauma still lingers today.

An 8-year-old girl won’t fall asleep unless she’s holding her mother’s hand. A 14-year-old boy bursts into rages of inexplicable anger. A 6-year-old girl has nightmares about her time at a government shelter.

These are the children of several asylum-seeking mothers that are now suing the Trump administration and are seeking compensation for the trauma they experienced during their separations. The case was brought under the Federal Tort Claims Act, which allows the public to sue the government for injuries caused by federal officials, in this case, the “emotional distress” suffered by the families, according to the lawsuit.

“Under the family separation policy, immigration officers took children from their parents, flew children to shelters across the country, and failed for weeks to tell the parents where their children were or how they were doing,” said Erik Walsh, an attorney with Arnold & Porter, one of the legal groups representing the families.

Read the complaint here.

With the 24-hour immigration news cycle, it’s easy to lose sight of how the family separation story has continued to unfold. So we’re taking a step back to remember some of the key moments of the family separation story:
  • Family separations are still happening. In the past year, the Trump administration has separated more than 900 children from their parents, based on parents’ minor criminal records or unsubstantiated allegations of gang membership, according to the ACLU. Among the families is a Salvadoran father who was separated from his two children for six months because border officers accused him of being an MS-13 gang member. You can read my story about the case here. 
  • Many of the separations date back to 2017. An inspector general report concluded that thousands of children were likely separated from parents as early as July 2017. The judge overseeing the family reunification case, known as Ms. L, has ordered the government to identify these other families.
  • Some of the separated children are babies and toddlers. At least 18 children under the age of 2 were taken away from parents under the “zero tolerance” practice last year, according to a congressional report. Our reporter Aura Bogado recently found that the government is opening new shelters for young children, including one Phoenix facility that was holding children under age 5 without their mothers.
  • Children torn from parents suffer long-lasting trauma. Abrupt separations can create “toxic stress” in children, which disrupts brain development and “increases the risk for stress-related disease and cognitive impairment well into adult years,” one report says.
IMMIGRATION COURT BACKLOG SURPASSES 1 MILLION

For years, the nation’s immigration judges have warned the government that they are feeling the strain of a rise in pending cases, with most immigrants waiting at least two years for their court dates.

According to the Transactional Records Access Clearinghouse, the backlog has now reached a new high, surpassing 1 million pending cases.

The backlog presents overwhelming challenges for a judicial system that only has about 450 judges. It could also cause significant delays in current court cases for immigrants who face uncertain futures in the country and must wait years for a determination in their cases.

"If nothing else, the continuing rise of the backlog shows that the immigration court is broken," Judge Ashley Tabaddor, president of the National Association of Immigration Judges, told CNN. "Until we fix the design defect of having a court in a law enforcement agency, we will not be able to address the backlog in a fair and effective manner."

Judges are also facing restrictions on how much time cases can remain in the system. Bogado recently obtained documents that shed light on a new court directive affecting immigrant families.

Assistant Chief Immigration Judge Daniel Daugherty issued a requirement via email to judges in New York City stating that deportation cases involving families “MUST BE COMPLETED WITHIN 365 DAYS.” The order may violate due process and protections for families facing deportation, Bogado reported.

The arbitrary deadline also means families have less time to prepare for their day in court.

Read the TRAC report here.

3 THINGS WE’RE READING

1. A Minnesota community is divided by a “bitter debate” over the unaccompanied migrant children that now call the small town home. (Washington Post)

Worthington, population 13,000, has received more unaccompanied children per capita than almost anywhere in the country. Their presence has fueled resentment from longtime locals, including the bus driver that takes them to school.

The kicker: “I say ‘good morning’ to the kids who’ll respond to me,” he said later. “But this year there are a lot of strange kids I’ve never seen before.”

2. Fifteen children have died in 2019 at the U.S.-Mexico border, according to the International Organization for Migration. (BuzzFeed News)

Iker Gael Cordova Herrera, 21 months old, is the latest child to die at the border. The boy and his mother drowned last week while trying to cross the Rio Grande.

The kicker: "US policy has been shaping the way people come into this country," Leutert told BuzzFeed News. "When it's more restrictive we know people try to cross the river and drown. It's a continuation of what happens when we're taking away legal pathways."

3. What it’s like to be a Border Patrol agent in the midst of growing immigration enforcement. (The New York Times)

Reporters interviewed 25 current and former agents to “paint a portrait of an agency in a political and operational quagmire” as the agency faces criticism for its treatment of migrants within its care.

The kicker: No longer were they a quasi-military organization tasked primarily with intercepting drug runners and chasing smugglers. Their new focus was to block and detain hundreds of thousands of migrant families fleeing violence and extreme poverty — herding people into tents and cages, seizing children and sending their parents to jail, trying to spot those too sick to survive in the densely packed processing facilities along the border.

Your tips have been vital to our immigration coverage. Keep them coming: [email protected].

– Laura C. Morel

 

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