In September, as many as 1,000 asylum seekers who were separated from their children at the southern border found out they could be a getting a second chance to make an asylum claim, including a number of parents who had been deported without their children. This week, some of those deported parents began that process.
“On Monday,” the Huffington Post reported, “the American Civil Liberties Union sent the Department of Justice the first batch of declarations from 12 parents who claim they were denied a fair chance at applying for asylum.” But that’s just a fraction of the 400 parents who were deported without their kids. Some have said they were misled or coerced by immigration officials into agreeing to deportation.
“Immigration experts told HuffPost that most parents who were deported between April and June while the zero tolerance policy was in effect were not given a legitimate shot at asylum. They say many were coerced into signing deportation forms after being falsely told by Immigration and Customs Enforcement officers that it was the only way to reunite with their children.” Others were so traumatized from being separated from their kids that they failed their “credible fear” interview, despite having a valid claim.
Some of these parents have said that their kids should stay in the U.S., where at least they’d get a chance to live. Others will try another chance at asylum, while at least a dozen parents can’t be found at all, staying underground to avoid the dangerous conditions they were fleeing in the first place. “If we can’t find these people or if we’re unable to maintain contact with them,” said Al Otro Lado’s Erika Pinheiro, “they could very well never see their children again.”
Currently, 99 kids of parents who’d already been deported and had previously said they were choosing not to reunite are still in U.S. custody and still waiting to be placed with their designated sponsors due to administration slow-walking, while some children from a separate group of 25 kids continue be in U.S. custody because officials deported their parents and now can’t find them.
There is no guarantee for parents making a second asylum bid. “Lee Gelernt, the lead lawyer in the ACLU’s lawsuit against ICE, said he expects the DOJ to consider the cases ‘in good faith,’ but added that the government has ‘expressed reluctance to bring [immigrants] back in the past.’” Today—Tuesday, Dec. 4—marks 131 days since a federal judge’s reunification deadline. Family separation remains a crisis.