The suspicion from immigrant rights advocates that the Trump administration is intentionally preventing detained migrant children from being released to family members and sponsors as the number of kids under Office of Refugee Resettlement (ORR) custody has also reached a record high looks to be more and more true every day.
“According to an official with knowledge not cleared to speak publicly,” CNN reports this week, “the rate of children being released ... has plummeted substantially. At the same time, the average length of time children stay in custody is skyrocketing.” Currently, 12,800 migrant children, the vast majority of them minors who came to the U.S. by themselves, are under custody. More of them are getting jailed for longer periods of time, and at greater risk of long-term trauma.
“According to annual reports to Congress, in fiscal year 2016, the average length of stay had been brought down to 35 days by the Obama administration,” CNN continued. “Today, that average is up to 59 days, according to HHS spokesman Kenneth Wolfe. And that counts only children who have already left, experts point out, making it impossible to know how long some kids have been waiting.”
Some reasons for this have included officials implementing stricter vetting procedures when it comes to releasing kids, which they say is for the children’s own protection. But advocates say these procedures are instead becoming roadblocks to kids getting reunited with their parents or sponsors, including an “ICE-HHS partnership to more heavily scrutinize adults who come forward, including fingerprinting,” and top officials have explicitly said that trying to reclaim children will mean deportation for some.
“In September 2017, then-ICE acting Director Tom Homan said at a public event that his agency would arrest undocumented people who came forward to care for the children, something previous administrations avoided.” Not to mention that it’s ludicrous to believe that the same administration that kidnapped thousands of babies and children from the arms of parents at the border under the barbaric “zero tolerance” policy is also concerned about the well-being of the same children they stole. Ridiculous.
Meanwhile, other roadblocks have also been forcing the parents and U.S. families of kids who can be released to U.S. homes to pay exorbitant fees to cover their kids’ airfare (this policy was sometimes waived in the Obama years), as ORR’s director has single-handedly prolonged the detention of hundreds by telling “subordinates ... that he’d have to personally sign off before any kids could be released from ORR’s secure facilities.” A judge ended up blocking that effort.
What is known for sure is that children don’t belong in detention by themselves, or in detention with their parents. Children, whether they’re coming with their parents or have come by themselves, are already escaping traumatic experiences in their home countries. Detention just makes it worse. “The earlier they’re out, the better,” said Dr. Mary Dozier, professor of child development at the University of Delaware.