SerpApi.Org
A disturbing number of cases have arisen where relatives have been detained after coming forward to take custody of children held in federal shelters.
The issue extends the list of troubling ICE practices under Trump’s crackdown on undocumented individuals living in the U.S. The administration has implemented a slew of changes to the vetting process for close relatives and guardians who volunteer to take in undocumented children, the Texas Tribune reported.
The changes include narrowing the list of acceptable identity documents, mandating DNA tests, and getting rid of a rule that prohibited the Office of Refugee Resettlement, which cares for unaccompanied migrant kids, from sharing information about potential sponsors with ICE.
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ICE documents show proof that they have found and arrested individuals with help from the Office of Refugee Resettlement.
As a result, some advocates are speaking out and accusing ICE of using children as “bait” to arrest those who come forward to be their caregivers.
As a result of the heightened regulations in Trump’s second term, many children have been subject to prolonged stays in federal shelters, after their guardians are taken to detention centers. In some cases, the children remain in the shelters while their parents are deported.
Bob Carey, who was the director of the Office of Refugee Resettlement during the Obama administration, said that the new information-sharing practice and arrests of potential sponsors will have a chilling effect on families who may not come forward to take children for fear of being detained.
Though the Trump administration has not released the exact number of sponsors detained as part of this new action, an NPR radio affiliate cited at least 100 such cases as of March, the Texas Tribune reported.
When the outlet approached ICE, a spokesperson blamed the Biden administration for allowing thousands of unaccompanied minors to cross the U.S.-Mexico border and provided more than a dozen examples of ICE detaining sponsors with criminal histories that included possession of child pornography, larceny, fraud, and homicide.
The Tribune spoke to a 32-year-old woman from Guatemala, who crossed the border into the U.S. in 2023 fleeting violence and poverty. Two years later, her 13-year-old son tried to join her and was placed in a shelter.
When she began the vetting process to get custody of her son, she was arrested by ICE. Her son has now been in a federal shelter for eight months.
Another immigrant mother told the outlet that she too was arrested after coming forward to sponsor her daughter, following the advice of a social worker who assured her nothing bad would happen.
