Carola Bracco

Rockland/Westchester Journal News Opinion

I was startled to learn that the Trump administration diverted $200 million from various agencies within the Department of Homeland Security to add to the already substantial budget of Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE). The diverted funds included $29 million from the U.S. Coast Guard and $10 million from the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA). This comes at a time when the country is in the midst of what looks to be a disastrous hurricane season. The massive diversion of cash brings ICE’s budget for “detention and transportation” to a more than $3.6 billion.

Would ICE use this money to speed up the process of reuniting immigrant children with their families, children who were separated from their parents at the border with Mexico and are being held in what witnesses describe as “cages” in detention centers across the country? Sadly, no. Just when I think I have seen humanity at its worst, the situation for immigrants deteriorates more.

And now a new rule proposed by the departments of Homeland Security and Health and Human Services would allow ICE to detain immigrant children beyond the current legal limit of 20 days. In fact, it would allow them to detain children with their mothers indefinitely, until their asylum cases are concluded. This could be a very long time; months, if not years.

A break down due to rule changes

It is important to understand the origin of the proposed rule change. The current, 20-day limit forced federal authorities to release parents and their children into the custody of sponsors while their asylum requests wended their way through the court system. Sponsors were often extended family members or friends of the asylum seekers. This arrangement broke down over the summer because Homeland Security instituted a new rule that required sponsors to be fingerprinted. Not surprisingly, that had a chilling effect on would-be sponsors and ICE found itself unable to move many parents and children out of detention within the 20 day time frame.

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The administration’s solution was to separate parents from their children. This tactic allowed them to hold the parents in detention and transfer the children to the care of Health and Human Services. The result was chaos and heartbreak.

According to a federal government update issued on Aug. 30, 497 of the 2,654 migrant children that were separated from their parents remain in custody. Twenty two of them are under 5 years old. To make matters worse, the parents of 322 of those children have already been deported. My heart breaks when I think how terrified every member of every one of those families must be.

The new rule proposal suggests that ICE intends to step up its — there is no softer way to say it — oppression of immigrants who come to our country seeking to leave oppression behind. I hope that’s not the case. I hope very soon to read that all of the separated children are reunited with their families. Even so, I would very much like to know what ICE plans to do with all that extra money.

Carola Bracco is the executive director of Neighbors Link, a direct service and advocacy organization that supports the integration of immigrants into the community.