Immigration Reporter
BuzzFeed News
https://www.buzzfeednews.com/article/hamedaleaziz/coronavirus-unaccompanied-minors-deported
Hamed Aleaziz reports for BuzzFeed News:
In a major departure from previous practice mandated by federal law, the Trump administration has begun quickly deporting immigrant children apprehended alone at the southern border.
Administration officials say they are following public health orders designed to prevent the spread of the coronavirus in the US, but opponents say they are using the health orders to skirt federal laws that govern the processing of unaccompanied minors.
The New York Times first reported that the Trump administration would apply to unaccompanied children from Central America a March 20 order issued by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) that bars the entry of those who cross into the country without authorization.
Previously, unaccompanied children from Central America picked up by Border Patrol agents would be sent to the Office of Refugee Resettlement (ORR), where they would be housed in shelters across the country as they began officially applying for asylum and waited to be reunited with family members in the US.
On Monday, a US Customs and Border Protection official confirmed to BuzzFeed News that the agency was now applying the CDC order to children.
“All aliens CBP encounters may be subject to the CDC’s Order Suspending Introduction Of Persons From A Country Where A Communicable Disease Exists (March 20, 2020), including minors,” read a statement from CBP. “When minors are encountered without adult family members, CBP works closely with their home countries to transfer them to the custody of government officials and reunite them with their families quickly and safely, if possible.”
The statement noted that there is discretion for the agency to exclude certain unaccompanied children from the order if, for example, they show signs of illness.
Immigrant advocates told BuzzFeed News they were alarmed at the policy shift.
“Children arriving at the border, many of whom have endured unimaginable harm at home and on their journey, are the most vulnerable group encountered by border officials. Unaccompanied children are particularly vulnerable to trafficking,” said Aaron Reichlin-Melnick, a policy analyst at the American Immigration Council. “The answer to coronavirus cannot be to put children in harm’s way.”
Eleanor Acer, the refugee protection director at Human Rights First, said the move was proof that the Trump administration was “using” a public health crisis “to advance their long-standing goal of overturning US laws protecting vulnerable children and people seeking asylum.”
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Read the rest of the article at the link.
Like all fascists, the White Nationalist nativists of the regime are always looking for new ways to pick on the most needy and vulnerable. And, what presents a better target for cruelty and abuse than unaccompanied kids, particularly when a health emergency offers “cover?”
The Dems sputter but can’t do anything except write letters that go in the regime’s waste baskets.
PWS
O3-30-20