Family Separations at the Border

By Ayesha Taj

In the past few months, the Trump Administration has been accused of using COVID-19 as an excuse to separate families at the border. At a time when people seeking legal protection are extremely vulnerable, the administration has allegedly further dismantled the asylum system in the U.S. and is putting immigrants in danger. A U.S. District Court recently ordered that all children held for more than 20 days at three ICE family detention centers in Texas and Pennsylvania must be released by July 17, 2020 to their parents or family sponsors as a response to the increase in family separations.

There are mounting COVID-19 outbreaks in two out of the three family detention centers that leave children and their parents vulnerable under unsanitary and inhumane conditions. “In order for these children to be truly safe, they should be released with their parents and not subjected to the long-term harm caused by family separation,” pro-immigration lobbying group FWD.us claims. Children as young as ten years old, taken away from their parents and with little protection, are often being sent right back into the dangerous situations they were fleeing in the first place, thanks to the Remain in Mexico program. Over 41,000 legal asylum seekers have been expelled without due process — including at least 2,000 children.

Since the COVID-19 quarantine began, the Department of Homeland Security has deported over 60 children living in the United States, claiming that they were health threats to American citizens. These children were here before the pandemic started and could have been safely reunited with family in the United States.

The Department of Homeland Security postponed the cases of 11,000 asylum seekers stranded by the Remain in Mexico policy, and this decision has forced vulnerable individuals to stay in dangerous conditions, with scarce access to cleaning supplies and running water, and where social distancing is impossible. Parents are faced with an unimaginable choice — they must either be forcibly separated from their children, or waive their children’s Flores Agreement rights, which require the government to release immigrant children from detention centers without unnecessary delay to their parents, and be put into detention centers where the number of COVID-19 cases continues to rise. Either option could have terrible consequences, and both result in the separation of families and endangerment of children at the border.