U.S. Scrambles to Explain Accounts of 'Missing' Children

Put pressure on the Democrats to end the horrible law that separates children from there parents once they cross the Border into the U.S. Catch and Release, Lottery and Chain must also go with it and we MUST continue building the WALL! DEMOCRATS ARE PROTECTING MS-13 THUGS.

But there is no law requiring parents and children to be separated. It is a “deliberate policy to separate children from their parents at the border,” Jennifer Podkul, KIND policy director, said at a second press briefing Tuesday.

Her organization estimates that “more than 600 kids in the last two weeks (since the policy went into effect) have been separated from their parents.”

Ironically, the new policy runs a very real risk that children will be lost in the system, according to Podkul, since it includes no ability for parents, who are in detention themselves, to communicate with or track their children. Phone calls are not allowed.

“If a parent is in U.S. marshals’ custody, it’s like a black hole,” added Michelle Brané, Women’s Refugee Commission migrant rights and justice director.

As a result, the policy turns children with families into unaccompanied minors, McKenna said, and puts them at risk for longer detention and then entry into foster care.

“We can imagine a situation where the kids do stay in custody longer because there’s no one then to release them to. And then, yes, they would end up in this kind of longer-term, long-term foster care, a situation until their cases were resolved or until a sponsor could be found,” McKenna said.

Loopholes

White House senior policy adviser Stephen Miller said the administration would prefer to detain parents and children together, but the lack of detention space, along with the specifications of the Flores agreement, are preventing that.

“Having enough detention space, along with terminating the Flores Settlement Agreement, would allow us to keep family units together until they are returned home,” he told reporters during the press briefing.

The Flores agreement is one of several “loopholes” Miller said he would like to see eliminated by Congress.

But “these protections and these procedures … were all designed to make sure that these kids get fair access to the U.S. immigration system, so they can ask us for protection in a way that recognizes that they’re kids, first and foremost, and that they aren’t the same as adults,” McKenna countered.

Aline Barros

Aline Barros is an immigration reporter for VOA’s News Center in Washington, D.C. Before joining VOA in 2016, Aline worked for the Gazette Newspapers and Channel 21 Montgomery Community Media, both in Montgomery County, Md. She has been published by the Washington Post, G1 Portal Brazilian News, and Fox News Latino. Aline holds a broadcast journalism degree from University of Maryland. Follow her @AlineBarros2.

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