Could immigrant children separated from their relatives face adoption?

Kaila White | The Republic | azcentral.com

Since the Trump administration's zero-tolerance border policy led to the separation of more than 2,300 immigrant children from their relatives since early May, some have wondered: Could these kids end up being adopted by American families?

Shortly after officials separated an immigrant woman from her 12-year-old daughter in May, she says she heard an officer tell another woman, "You’re being deported and your child is being adopted."

The U.S. Department of Health and Human Services has insisted that separated minors will soon be reunited with their relatives. Foster and adoption agencies have said separated children need to be with their families and will never be put up for adoption.

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But there are a number of scenarios that could complicate that.

What if the person who brought the child to the U.S. wasn't a relative, and the parents can't be found? What if a parent doesn't want the child back, maybe out of fear for the child's life at home? What if a parent is abusive and the child shouldn't be reunited with them? What if a parent dies?

The threat is terrifying. But is it possible?

5 things we learned from Melania Trump's Arizona trip First lady Melania Trump spent six hours in Arizona on Thursday, touring a child detention center in Phoenix and talking to border officials in Tucson.

System for unaccompanied minors also used for separated kids

To understand what may happen to children who have been separated from their relatives, it helps to first learn what happens to kids who show up in the country alone.

It starts when law enforcement finds and detains someone who is under 18 years old, doesn't have legal immigration status and doesn't have a parent or legal guardian in the U.S. They're often called "unaccompanied minors."

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Minors from Mexico and Canada can be processed quickly and sent back. But if kids are from anywhere else, officials must refer the child to the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services' Office of Refugee Resettlement, which then has custody of the child and is obligated to care for them.

Most of the minors go to one of the facilities in HHS' network of "just over 100 shelters in 17 states," and stay for an average of 57 days, according to a fact sheet released in June. The "overwhelming majority" are released to family members who live in the U.S., where they can live while waiting for their immigration hearings.

Some of the minors enter foster-care placement, primarily "children under age 13, sibling groups with one child younger than 13, pregnant and parenting teens, and children with special needs, including mental health needs," according to 2017 congressional research.

Under Trump's zero-tolerance policy, minors who were separated from their relatives also went into Office of Refugee Resettlement care and have been treated as unaccompanied minors and placed into the same system. Some have already been placed in foster care.

How does the foster and adoption system work?

The Office of Refugee Resettlement works with a network of foster-care and adoption providers, mostly religious organizations, to care for unaccompanied and separated minors.

Foster families who are already licensed with their state can also pursue licensing to foster unaccompanied minors through those organizations.

Some of the largest are Bethany Christian Services, Lutheran Immigration and Refugee Services and the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops.

These organizations place some of the youngest separated children in foster homes, and have spoken out against separating families.

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Bethany Christian Services has said reunifying children with their families is "our top priority" and "they will not be adopted." The organization also said separating families is "cruel" and "wrong," and "such policies create unnecessary trauma on the most vulnerable and most certainly will have devastating long-term effects."

Lutheran Immigration and Refugee Services, which has placed 120 separated children in foster care, said if it can't identify a relative or sponsor, the child will be placed in long-term foster care but will not be eligible for permanent adoption.

"Our federal and state laws are set up to prevent these kids from being in some immediate adoption proceeding," said Emily Butera, senior policy adviser for the Women's Refugee Commission.

In order for any child to be eligible for adoption, their parents' parental rights must be terminated.

Unaccompanied and separated kids are in federal custody, and the federal government does not have the ability to terminate parental rights, Butera said. States do.

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Kids who remain in Office of Refugee Resettlement custody for long periods of time or do not have viable reunification options can seek Special Immigrant Juvenile Status. That could get the child lawful permanent residency, but it still does not terminate parental rights.

Even minors who, for example, were victims of trafficking and end up qualifying as refugees generally are not eligible for adoption, according to the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops.

There needs to be proof that the child's parents are dead or have terminated their parental rights, which can be hard to prove because it's difficult to locate parents or obtain their death certificates if they have died.

'Those odds may begin to shift'

"I am optimistic right now that the odds of these children being placed for adoption are very low, but if the federal government does not do its job in figuring out how to put these families back together, then I am concerned that those odds may begin to shift," Butera said.

Any chance of a child who was separated from their family under the zero-tolerance policy ending up on track for adoption would unfold over months or years, she said.

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Also, there is no guarantee that kids who can't be reunified with relatives will be allowed to stay in the U.S., Butera said.

"My concern is, especially with the small children ... will children be deported without their parents? And what will their home governments be left to do or able to do to facilitate family reunification on the other end?" Butera said.

"That one really scares me as well."

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