Tucson-area elected Democrats are denouncing the Trump administration’s “zero-tolerance” policy that is resulting in children being separated from their parents along the Southwest border, saying it’s cruel and goes beyond acceptable immigration enforcement.
“We’ve heard from a number of people, including our spiritual leaders, that this is wrong,” said Pima County Supervisor Ramón Valadez. “There is a line, and I believe these actions that this administration is taking crosses that line. It crosses it so grossly, that we all need to stand up and we all need to say enough because this can’t happen in this country.”
The Pima County Board of Supervisors and the Tucson City Council approved Tuesday, along party lines, nonbinding resolutions opposing the administration policy that requires the Border Patrol to refer for prosecution those who cross the border illegally, including parents traveling with their children.
“Certainly families and children have been separated for years, but the numbers have increased exponentially,” said Supervisors’ Chairman Richard Elías. “The cruelty associated with this policy is designed to terrorize families and children.”
The all-Democrat Tucson City Council unanimously backed its resolution, with Councilwoman Regina Romero calling the separations “inhumane” and “un-American.”
Councilman Paul Durham echoed such comments and said he has asked to tour the Southwest Key center that is running a child-detention facility in his ward. As of Tuesday night, Durham said, no one had responded to his request.
Customs and Border Protection has not responded to the Arizona Daily Star’s repeated requests for state numbers. Nationwide, from May 5 through June 9, officials said, 2,342 children have been separated from their parents and reclassified as “unaccompanied minors,” while 2,206 adults were prosecuted for crossing the border illegally. The majority are coming from Guatemala, Honduras and El Salvador.
Parentage questioned
Emotions also ran high during the county board’s meeting, with a handful of attendees speaking against the board’s resolution by saying it is disgusting that these families were using children as human shields, and that the reason they want to come here is for free education and health care. They also suggested that the families could seek asylum in Mexico, which administration officials and some Republicans have said is a safe third country for them.
Echoing many of the arguments from the administration, including blaming Democrats and saying that U.S. citizens who commit a crime get separated from their parents all the time, Republican Supervisor Ally Miller said: “No one wants to see children separated from parents, if in fact they are their parents. We don’t even know that.” That drew heckling from some in the crowd.
“Excuse me, I listened to all of you,” Miller told the room and asked Elías to bring order to the meeting and silence the crowd.
She said the problem was that previous administrations had given a free pass to adults who broke the law and that President Trump was no longer willing to do that. “We have to decide, are we a sovereign nation or not?”
Republican Supervisor Steve Christy, who also voted against the resolution, said the separations are “a tragic result of those who don’t believe in legal immigration and continue to use their children as pawns and shields to promote an open border policy without comprehensive immigration reform.”
Democratic Supervisor Sharon Bronson, by contrast, said she wanted to remind people “these are peaceful asylum seekers, legally doing what they are doing, not breaking the law,” which received applause from some attendees. About a dozen people, including longtime immigration and human-rights advocates, spoke in favor of the board’s resolution.
“Not a blanket policy”
During a media call Tuesday, federal officials couldn’t say how many of the children have been successfully reunited with their parents.
Brian Hasting, with the Border Patrol, said all humanitarian consideration and policies remain in place and that sector chiefs have discretion when it comes to referring for prosecution sensitive cases, such as “adults traveling with tender-age children,” which for the agency is 5 years old or younger. “It is not a blanket policy,” he said.
But there have been multiple reports of younger children being separated from their parents as they are criminally prosecuted. One girl told an advocate in Texas that she had to teach the other children how to change a young girl’s diaper.
Administration officials say they hope this policy can serve as a deterrent for others thinking of coming. Acting Health and Human Services Assistant Secretary Steve Wagner said Tuesday that the federal agency was prepared to expand capacity to house minors who travel alone and those separated as needed, but he hoped it won’t be necessary. “We hope parents will stop bringing their children in this dangerous journey.”
Since Attorney General Jeff Sessions first announced the policy in April, there’s been growing opposition from religious leaders, politicians and the office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights, which condemned the practice as a serious violation of children’s rights and international law.
An ICE official said in a written statement that the agency “will make every effort to reunite the child with the parent once the parent’s immigration case has been adjudicated.” It has posted information in facilities letting detained parents know how to locate or communicate with a child in the custody of the Office of Refugee Resettlement.
Unknown number
of reunifications
If a parent is going through criminal prosecution, the child cannot be held in criminal detention facilities, so the minor is referred to the Health and Human Services’ Office of Refugee Resettlement, where a caseworker tries to find a sponsor. The parent is the top option, followed by a close relative and a family friend. Wagner said he didn’t know how many of the children in his agency’s custody have been placed or reunited with their parents.
“The policy is relatively new, and we’re still working through the experience of reunifying parents with their kids after adjudication,” he said. Once they are aware of the presence of the parent in the country, “the goal is to reunite the child with that parent.” That can mean keeping the child in a shelter close to where the parent is so they can leave together once the mother or father is deported.
There are close to 12,000 unaccompanied minors in the agency’s custody, out of which Wagner said about 80 percent arrived at the border without a parent or legal guardian and the rest were separated from their parents.
State Rep. Pamela Powers Hannley, D-Tucson, has said there are about 300 unaccompanied minors being detained in Tucson. It is unclear what share of those are here as a result of their parents being prosecuted.
Cosme Lopez, a spokesman for the U.S. Attorney's office in Arizona, had told the Star on June 6 his office was working with law enforcement and other federal agencies involved to develop a “mechanism” to keep parents informed about their children. A week later, he said he was “unsure” what was happening with the mechanism.
