Advocates file human rights complaint to stop family separations at border

Central American families and children, like this little girl detained last November after crossing the Rio Grande near Rincon Village, make up the fastest-growing demographic of migrants here illegally, one-quarter of all apprehensions at the southern border this year. ﻿ less Central American families and children, like this little girl detained last November after crossing the Rio Grande near Rincon Village, make up the fastest-growing demographic of migrants here illegally, ... more Photo: Bob Owen, Staff Photo: Bob Owen, Staff Image 1 of / 5 Caption Close Advocates file human rights complaint to stop family separations at border 1 / 5 Back to Gallery

The Texas Civil Rights Project and other national advocacy groups filed a complaint with the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights Thursday, arguing the U.S. government's practice of separating immigrant parents and children at the southern border violates international protocols.

The situation is critical and requires an emergency intervention, the complaint argued, particularly in the Rio Grande Valley, where about 60 percent of all immigrant families and children crossing the border were apprehended in April.

"No developed democracy in the world systematically separates children from their parents," said Zenén Jaimes Pérez, a spokesman for the Texas non-profit. "It's not just cruel. It's a violation of international agreements and conventions."

Hundreds of families, many asylum seekers from Central America, have been separated as a result of the White House's new "zero tolerance" policy of prosecuting every border crosser, even those accompanied by minor children, for illegal entry. Parents serve short prison sentences for what is usually a misdemeanor crime before going to immigrant detention facilities, while their children are placed in federal foster care.

Advocates say they struggle to find each other later.

The complaint comes as concerns about the treatment of immigrant children in government custody has reached a fevered pitch, with national rallies Thursday, fueled in part by a viral, though not entirely accurate, social media campaign.

DOUBLING DOWN: Trump administration defends family separations at border

Senior White House officials doubled down on the separations this week, seeking to push blame for the practice to Democrats who they said would not support undoing federal "loop holes" that they argue encourage migrant families to come here.

The complaint contends that separating families violates international protocols including the rights of parents, children, families and asylum seekers.

"Since the United States did not and does not inform the parents of their children's whereabouts, the United States is effectively disappearing hundreds of minor children," it said. "In practice, the State has taken the children, absconded them, and it is accountable to nobody."

The U.S. State Department declined to comment on pending litigation.

The commission, based in Costa Rica, is an arm of the Organization of the American States, which includes all 35 states of the Americas except for Cuba. The complaint asked the commission to order the U.S. to immediately reunite the five plaintiffs named in the complaint and cease the "systematic practice" of separating families at the border.

The commission meets Friday and is expected to ask the U.S. government to answer questions about the complaint before making a decision. The body can only make requests, not enforce action, as the U.S. has not ratified the relevant treaty, the Inter-American Convention of Human Rights.

"It's really more of a naming and shaming exercize," said Ted Piccone, a senior fellow in Latin American foreign policy at the Brookings Institution, a Washington think tank.

The U.S. in the past generally cooperated with and supported the commission, but it has no legal obligation to acccept its rulings.

"We have an administration that is very hostile to human rights, international institutions, and international law," Piccone said. "It will be an interesting test case."

The process could, however, reveal more information about a practice that has been largely opaque as the government has provided little information.

Prosecuted parents go quickly from Justice Department custody to Homeland Security detention centers and are often speedily deported. Their children, who are not allowed in federal prison, are deemed "unaccompanied" and placed in shelters run by Health and Human Services, with little cross-agency communications about their whereabouts.

As the government has ramped up prosecutions of parents in recent weeks, those facilities are at 95 percent capacity and the Trump administration has looked into housing children on military bases, including in Texas.

"There is no process in place for the children to communicate with their parents, or for them to know where their parents are," the complaint said. "There is likewise no process in place to guarantee that removed children will be promptly and safely reunited with their parents."

Sometimes they are not. In one case, a Guatemalan father was separated from his 18-month-old toddler last summer and deported without him three months later. They were only reunified in December.

READ MORE: Immigrant families separated at border struggle to find each other

The complaint names four Guatemalan parents and one Salvadoran father but is expected to be expanded in coming weeks. It includes distressing details about what little information is provided to parents on their children.

One 29-year-old Guatemalan mother fled her indigenous village after she said her husband was brutally killed. Though she sought help, she said her government could not protect her. In May she and her 11-year-old son crossed the U.S. border illegally and Border Patrol agents took away the boy. They said she was not allowed to see him, but did not tell her why.

"She was visibly distraught, and extremely nervous about the uncertainty of what might happen to her son," the complaint said. "She broke down crying several times."

Another Guatemalan father was placed in a cell while his 12-year-old son was told to stay outside. When he came out, "his son was gone. He was not even able to say goodbye," the complaint said. Agents did not say why they were separated, where his son was sent, or when they may be reunited.

A Guatemalan mother with three children, aged 7, 8, and 11, was only told she would "see them again at some point."

Lawyers argue the practice violates the rights of asylum seekers, families and minors.

LEGAL LIMBO: Her husband murdered, her son taken away, a mother seeking asylum tells a judge, 'I have lost everything'

"Children do not know where their parents are, or if and when they will see them again," the complaint said. "This is a form of torture as it punishes the children for an act committed by their parents."

It is the latest legal action taken against Trump's administration for what many see as a hardline policy that in the last week has received mounting pushback as stories of separated families emerged.

The American Civil Liberties Union filed a lawsuit to block such family separations in February and is expecting a federal judge's ruling soon. The public defender's office for the Western District of Texas in a separate suit argued the practice violates parents' rights to due process as they plead guilty to the crime to reunite with their children.

SEE: Trump moves to end 'catch and release', prosecuting parents and removing children who cross border

The growing legal reaction suggests the policy could meet the fate of some of the administration's other controversial immigration initiatives. Federal judges blocked the so-called travel ban shortly after it was announced last year and it has been largely tangled up in legal wrangling ever since.

lomi.kriel@chron.com

@lomikriel