Lawyers says separation of Congolese woman and her seven-year-old is part of Trump administration’s tactic to deter immigrants

This article is more than 2 years old

This article is more than 2 years old

US immigration authorities have kept a Congolese woman seeking asylum separated from her seven-year-old daughter for four months, according to a lawsuit filed on Monday.

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Lawyers said authorities had not explained why the two were separated and claimed the move indicates the Trump administration is using a controversial tactic meant to deter asylum seekers: separating parents from children indefinitely.

Last year, administration officials said they were considering implementing such a policy. It has not been formally announced.

“Under the radar screen they are doing it anyway in practice,” said Lee Gelernt, deputy director of the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) Immigrants’ Rights Project. “We are hearing about dozens and dozens of cases.”

Child welfare groups have warned against such separations, saying they can have long-lasting consequences for the safety, health, development and wellbeing of children.

The ACLU filed a lawsuit in US district court on Monday against the federal immigration agencies that have overseen the separation of the Congolese woman, named as Ms L in court documents, and her daughter.

“When the officers separated them, Ms L could hear her daughter in the next room frantically screaming that she wanted to remain with her mother,” the lawsuit said.

Last year, the woman and her daughter fled the Democratic Republic of Congo, where political instability and violence in the eastern part of the country has led thousands to flee their homes. More than 7.7 million people in the country face extreme hunger; according to the United Nations, children are being sexually abused and recruited to fight.

Ms L presented herself and her daughter at a port of entry in San Diego in November 2017, the lawsuit says. Using the little Spanish she knows, she sought asylum. Four days later she was sent to the Otay Mesa detention center in the city. Her daughter was sent to a facility in Chicago, the suit alleges.

According to court documents, Ms L is now not sleeping or eating. In the past four months the mother and daughter have spoken “approximately six times” by phone but they have not seen each other, the documents said.

The ACLU is seeking reunification as the asylum claim is processed.

The Trump administration has been working to make the most dramatic changes to immigration law in 30 years and backing policies advocates and lawyers say discourage all types of immigration.

Trump appointees have dramatically shifted how the federal government refers to asylum, going as far as to suggest in public communications the unproven claim that asylum is a routinely abused legal loophole.

Facebook Twitter Pinterest During his time as homeland security secretary, John Kelly considered family separation as a deterrent. Photograph: Sipa USA/Rex/Shutterstock

In March 2017, when he was the homeland security secretary, the now-White House chief of staff, John Kelly, said the administration was considering a family separation policy to deter people from making dangerous journeys to the border.

Even though such a policy has not been formally announced, a group of six immigration organizations filed a complaint with the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) in December 2017, after documenting at least 175 cases of family separation at the border that year. The organizations urged the department to stop the practice.

“Prior administrations have detained families and we have pushed back on that,” said Gelernt, “saying the US government should no be detaining asylum-seeking families. But this is at a whole other level.”

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Last month, more than 200 child welfare, development, health and justice organizations, including the American Association of Pediatrics and Unicef, warned that such separations can cause lasting harm.

In a letter to the homeland security secretary, Kirstjen Nielsen, they wrote: “The psychological distress, anxiety, and depression associated with separation from a parent would follow the children well after the immediate period of separation – even after the eventual reunification with a parent or other family.”

The Obama administration was heavily criticized for its family detention policies, which included subjecting children to prolonged incarceration.

In response, the DHS appointed an advisory committee to assess the government’s family detention policies, including a proposal to separate families. The committee’s September 2016 report concluded that separating families “is never in the best interest of children”.