Immigrant children in Arizona. Photo: Ross D. Franklin/AP10,000-Strong Class Action Alleges Detained Immigrant Children Used to Catch Undocumented Parents, Sponsors
According to the nationwide class action lawsuit, government agencies shared information about potential sponsors of detained immigrant children not for the good of the children, but to discourage migrants from crossing the Mexican border.
January 22, 2019 at 06:39 PM
3 minute read
Nonprofit legal group Southern Poverty Law Center has taken on a nationwide class action lawsuit against the federal government, claiming on behalf of more than 10,000 undocumented children that the Office of Refugee Resettlement used its policies to ensnare parents and other sponsors into providing fingerprints and other information that was then given to U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement.
According to the lawsuit, the two federal agencies share such information with the intent of discouraging migrants from crossing the Mexican border, not to check the suitability of the sponsors, as was claimed.
The complaint filed in the Eastern District of Virginia on Friday stems from a 2017 memorandum of agreement between the refugee resettlement office and immigration officials, which was leaked on Thursday night.
U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement and the Office of Refugee Resettlement did not immediately respond to requests for comment.
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Click here to read the memo
The memo outlined alleged unconstitutional intentions behind the agencies' “zero tolerance” policies and information sharing, according to plaintiffs lawyer Simon Y. Sandoval-Moshenberg, legal director of the immigrant advocacy program at the Legal Aid Justice Center in Virginia.
“The government is doing something for one reason and claiming it's doing it for a completely opposite reason,” Sandoval-Moshenberg said in a call with reporters on Tuesday.
The case stems from a similar complaint filed in August 2018 by the Legal Aid Justice Center on behalf of four immigrant children and their sponsors. That case applied only to Virginia.
Of the 12 named plaintiffs in the latest complaint, three live in Florida. The suit places blame on a detention center in Homestead, among others.
The complaint includes stories of detained children, including an 11-year-old referred to as J.A.T.L., who's been detained in Texas since August 2018.
According to Sandoval-Moshenberg, the child's mother wanted to sponsor him, but backed out when she was required to provide fingerprints. Her sister has since stepped forward as a sponsor. But meanwhile a psychiatrist who evaluated the child, who's still in custody, said the boy was “anxious, frightened and alone.”
The complaint attempts to show a pattern. It claims another child's father was arrested and sent back to Guatemala within days of applying to be a sponsor and providing fingerprints. That child remains in custody, according to the lawsuit.
The more sponsors who are put off, Sandoval-Moshenberg claimed, the longer children spend in detention centers. But the complaint alleges that this was the government's plan all along: to put off potential immigrants with detention-center horror stories.
A hearing is set for Feb. 15.
Read the full complaint:
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