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IMMIGRANT PARENTS WHO revealed after joyful reunions with their young children have spoken of the traumatic impact of being separated from their sons and daughters for months after they were taken from them at the US border.
The administration has been scrambling to reunify the families this week to meet the first of two deadlines set by a federal judge in San Diego who ordered thousands of children be given back to their immigrant parents.
Scores of children separated from their families were sent to government-contracted shelters or foster care hundreds of miles away from where their parents were detained.
Roger Ardino, from Honduras, was happy to be back with his four-year-old son, Roger Jr., who sat on his lap and played with the microphones as the father spoke to reporters.
The father said he was still shaken by the ordeal he had to go through just to speak to his boy while he was in government custody. The two were separated in February.
He described feeling a pain in his heart and like he couldn’t breathe after his son was taken away. The father held up his wrist and told reporters that after they were separated, he threatened to use a razor on himself if he couldn’t speak to his son.
He spoke at Annunciation House, an El Paso, Texas-based shelter, along with another father recently reunited with his child. They arrived there Tuesday.
“I was completely traumatised,” the father said in Spanish. He added later:
Every time I spoke to him, he would start crying. Where are the rights of children? I thought children were supposed to be a priority here in the United States.
The father said he planned to live with relatives in the United States as his asylum case is processed, which could take years.
It wasn’t immediately clear how many children remain in detention facilities.
Late last month, U.S. District Judge Dana Sabraw in San Diego set a 14-day deadline to reunite children under 5 with their parents and a 30-day deadline for older children.
He asked the government to return to give an update on how many families had been reunited.
In trying to meet the first deadline, the government began with a list of 102 children potentially eligible to be reunited and whittled that to 75 through screening that included DNA testing done by swabbing the inside of the cheek.
Of those 75, Justice Department lawyers told the court the government would guarantee 38 would be back with their parents by the end of Tuesday. They said an additional 17 could also join their parents if DNA results arrived and a criminal background check on a parent was completed. It was not known Wednesday whether that happened.
Government attorneys told Sabraw that the Trump administration would not meet the deadline for 20 other children under 5 because it needed more time to track down parents who have already been deported or released into the U.S.
The administration defended its screening, saying it discovered parents with serious criminal histories, five adults whose DNA tests showed they were not parents of the children they claimed to have, and one case of credible child abuse.
The administration faces a second, bigger deadline — 26 July — to reunite more than 2,000 older children with their families.
Immigration lawyers say they already are seeing barriers to those reunifications from a backlog in the processing of fingerprinting of parents to families unable to afford the airfare to fly the child to them — which could run as high as $1,000.
Kay Bellor, vice president for programs at Lutheran Immigration and Refugee Service, which provides foster care to migrant children, said she witnessed the reunion Wednesday of a 3-year-old and his father in the Washington, D.C., area.
The boy seemed bright and alert, asking his father about wanting to go to school and seeing his mother.
“To me, the overwhelming feeling was this is right that they’re being reunited, but this was so wrong from the very beginning, and it didn’t have to happen this way,” Bellor said. “They should never have been separated in the first place.”
In New York, Javier Garrido Martinez spoke through as he held his 4-year-old son, who fed a Dorito to his father as he sat on his lap.
The Honduran father and son had been apart for 55 days.
Garrido Martinez said they were “the worst days” of his life.
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What do you expect when you force your way into another country?
If you want to go to the United States, go there legally.
@Edward Smith: what visas should they apply for ?
@Edward Smith: yeah! Because its that simple eh eddie! Will you personally go over and round up the illegal Irish
@Justin McNulty: illegal Irish should’nt be there either
@Dave Malon: neither should Arnie the ‘terminator’ if the Trump ‘denaturilisation’ task force does it’s job.. ..will he be deported Dave ?
@Edward Smith: is this a real account Edward? And how did he “force” his way into the USA. Explain your meaning of force? Do lots of Irish people “force” their way too?
@Walk On By: I’d know the answer to this how exactly?
The law is the law. Nobody is above the law so if Arnie falls into the deportation bracket then yeah he should be deported…or do you think we should have special exceptions in law for certain individuals or groups of people?
@Dave Malon: so you agree that the ‘white’ powers that be make exceptions for the likes of Arnie & Melania ,yes? Why is this ?
@Walk On By: give over babbling on with ridiculas loaded questions. You sound like a Daily Mail reporter
@Walk On By: this debate is getting nonsensical. Trafficking kids is an issue on legitimate border crossings with false passport, so in the middle of a desert what other abuses of the system is going on. Of course the bleeding hearts forget these kids are destined for a life of prostitution slavery and crime – anything that comes after being apprehended is a chance to avoid such exploitation for a time at least.
@Dave Malon: you sound like a Trump supporter who actually doesn’t understand as to how hard it is for people to become ‘lawful’ citizens in the U.S…Your answer is ‘they broke the law’ now deport them ,which is a simpletons response to the immigration crisis in the U.S…
@Walk On By: more absolute nonsense you’re sprouting. So I’m a Trump supporter now because I believe in national borders. Yeah lets have a free for all and let anyone go anywhere they want. Sure just rip up your passport there because according to you we don’t need them. We should all travel in the Kum ba yah bus too with giant flowers on the side.
@Martin Critten: so their parents are planning on a life of “prostitution and crime” for their kids???
@Dave Malon: i’m not an ‘open borders’ guy..i’m just letting you know that the immigration problem in the U.S. will never be sorted out..The U.S. have caused serious issues in the countries that these people are running/leaving from -in fact,two of those countries rank in the top 5 most violent countries of the world..also,40% of the ‘unlawful’ folks come through the legal way…I wish that i could talk more about this with you,but i have to go out for a wee few hours…ciao..
@Walk On By: ok we agree on one point. The US defo has made sh!t of a lot of countries for sure which in turn is now forcing europe to carry the can on migrants.
@Justin McNulty: Illegal Irish should be deported too.
@Walk On By: the same ones as every other legal migrant and you have to apply from your own country. Simples.
@Justin McNulty: illegal Irish should be round up and sent home! Just like anyone who comes to this country illegally!
@Edward Smith: it’s not illegal to request refuge. Your privilege is shocking.
@Stu MacDuff: please explain in great detail as to what visas that these people should apply for..,,(i’ gave out a list of them the other day on here -very interesting they were ) .
you can also let us know what visas that the ‘undocumented’ living in the U.S. should apply for…and how ‘easy’ it is ;)
@Edward Smith: You can still expect some human decency, can’t you?
@Paddy: another simpleton post.Well done.
It has been a great time for the private prison industry.The same industry that paid $$$ towards Trumps election campaign..
@Walk On By: right so by your account a life living under the radar with someone who may not be your patent, exposed to prostitution, drug trafficking, slavery and crime is a far better shout than 3 meals a day proper medical back up and a bed .. that is until its considered what to be doing with your illegal entry to another country – jesus give us a break.
where were those people held before the ‘zero tolerance’ policy,Martin ? Do tell
where were those people held before the ‘zero tolerance’ policy,Martin ? Do tell
@Martin Critten: so you support taking kids and babies from their parents and imprisoning those children? Seeing as it’s obviously not there where exactly is your line?
@Martin Critten: give you a break???? You want a break??? You have zero respect or thought for these human beings because you won the lottery of being born in this country and YOU want a break????? Ha!
Illegal aliens have no Constitutional rights and any jeopardy, they put themselves into.
They are not “asylum seekers” or “refugees” both now almost meaningless terms, as they must seek that status in Mexico or whichever country they first entered.
If they want to be American citizens and better their lot apply from home in advance.
Your problems are not America’s problems.
@Stu MacDuff: wow! You can tell that ALL asylum seekers are fake? Is it a super power?
@Stu MacDuff: you just went and proved that you haven’t a clue as to what you are talking about -and the 36 people that ‘liked’ your comment showed their ignorance too
1) illegal immigrants do have constitutional rights
2) Up to 3% of them are ‘asylum seekers’ (that also can depend on what judge that you come up against)
3) They do not have to seek asylum in Mexico -in fact,the US has it’s own domestic law – https://www.gpo.gov/fdsys/pkg/STATUTE-94/pdf/STATUTE-94-Pg102.pdf
4) put up the visas that these folks can apply for
5) you are clueless
I’m surprised by the media hysteria around this. It is far from the worst thing the USA has been involved in in the last few years. It’s also debatable whether they should be allowed to control their own borders, whereas some things they did like bombing countries that were no threat to their security (only threats to their business interests) seemed to attract less media attention.
@SC: so wait the media can only report on the really bad things America does? Of course separating brown people from their children must be nothing in your book but it’s pretty high up there for many, many of us.
It’s terrible that this has been going on since the Clinton administration 20 years ago.
It’s good that it’s stopping.
People are deemed a commodity in America. Period.
@iohanx: perhaps more so by traffickers who shove them under fences, put them to a life under the radar exposed to crime slavery and prostitution. Is this what your striving for?
@Martin Critten: care to provide any support for the nonsense you keep repeating?
@Graham: look at that camp that was discovered in Tucson a while back. There’s a video of a marine identifying a tree as one used for “child rape”. Didn’t see the media pick that one up. But I suppose it happens anyway – https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/did-obama-administration-children-human-traffickers/
@Andy Cahalan: and you take that to mean every child crossing the border is destined for crime and prostitution and should be taken from their parents and imprisoned? Your logic takes a seriously circuitous route
Only if there’s money to be made from them.
@Cormac Ó Braonáin: Such an unattractive place to visit.
Its called Child Trafficking.
These “Asylum Seeker’s” pay “DRUG CARTELS” who control the boarder on the Mexican side up to 10,000 dollars at a time, the same as African “Economic Migrants” are paying Libyan traffickers big money to leave Libyan waters on wooden boats this is the uncomfortable truth that the LIBERALS choose to IGNORE
@Shyster Inc Ireland: OMG! The SHYSTER believes that the “liberals” choose to “ignore” that there is people trafficking going on at the border.. what a guy!!
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