Boulder Colorado Immigration And Naturalization Legal Blog

Immigrant advocacy groups may have celebrated on June 26 when a federal judge in California gave U.S. immigration authorities 30 days to reunite families separated at the Mexican border. While officials were struggling to meet this deadline, the Trump administration suffered another legal setback in Texas. On July 30, a district court judge ordered the Department of Health and Human Services to transfer all of the children being detained at the Shiloh Residential Treatment Center to other facilities. The judge made her ruling after hearing that children at the Manvel facility were being abused and overmedicated with psychotropic drugs.

The judge determined that conditions at Shiloh failed to meet standards for the care of undocumented minors established by a 1997 court settlement. Facility operators are said to have denied water to some children and prevented others from making phone calls. The judge also heard that many children were being given powerful drugs without their parents' consent. A DHHS representative said that secure immigrant detention facilities like Shiloh were needed to cope with minors who pose a threat to themselves or others or are coping with serious mental health issues.

California readers could be concerned to learn that U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services has released two memos that significantly alter the way the federal government handles visa applications. The changes make it easier for officials to deny applications and deport immigrants.

In mid-July, USCIS released a memo that allows officials to immediately reject visa applications that have missing or inaccurate information. This changes a 2013 policy that required officials to notify applicants of correctable errors and give them 30 days to address the issue. The new policy applies to both new applications and renewals and goes into effect on Sept. 11.

California has been one of the states on the front line of the child separation controversy. Although the reunification of families seeking asylum in the United States has begun, the American Civil Liberties Union took action to challenge the federal government's intention to immediately deport the families. After considering the ACLU's motion, a federal judge halted the immediate deportation of reunited families. The temporary stay grants reunified families one week to file their asylum paperwork.

The inability of parents to request asylum for children who have been forcibly taken away represented the core of the ACLU's legal argument. The organization insisted that the government had an obligation to give the families a chance to pursue asylum.

California residents may be aware that U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents are supposedly no longer separating undocumented immigrant families at the Mexican border. However, getting children that have been detained out of immigration facilities is often a difficult and expensive process for their parents or relatives. Strict rules have been put into place to prevent vulnerable children being placed in unfit homes and keep them out of the hands of human traffickers, which some advocacy groups are being used by the authorities to gather information on undocumented workers.

Children being held in immigration detention facilities can only be released to their parents or a sponsor living in the United States. Sponsors are often undocumented workers themselves, and they are required to establish that they are blood relatives of the child or children in question, submit pay stubs or other proof of income and agree to home visits. However, media outlets are reporting that ICE agents are gathering the fingerprints of prospective sponsors and all of the members of their households during these visits.