Groups demand end to info-sharing on asylum-seeking children

[Eugene]

Source: Associated Press

By FRANK BAJAK
an hour ago

Earlier this year, the federal agency tasked with caring for asylum-seeking children separated from their parents at the U.S.-Mexican border officially took on a new, little heralded role: helping to deport relatives of the young migrants.

In a Wednesday letter to the heads of the Department of Health and Human Services and the Department of Homeland Security, 112 civil-liberties and immigrant-rights groups, child-welfare advocates and privacy activists are crying foul, demanding an immediate halt to what they call an illegal practice.

HHS and DHS are using information on U.S.-based relatives and other potential sponsors obtained from detained children to “arrest and deport those families,” the authors complain. Already, they write, “families have become too scared to step forward to sponsor children.”

The new role for the Office of Refugee Resettlement, an HHS unit that works to reunite unaccompanied migrant children with relatives until their legal status can be resolved, began under an information-sharing agreement it quietly signed in April with immigration enforcement agencies in DHS.

-snip-


Read more: https://apnews.com/81787a5897704a0cae82a9ceb0eea271

[mr_lebowski]

1. Man that is some f'd up s**t right there ...

"Hey, Kid? You DO wanna see your Mami and Papi again right? Well, listen, maybe if you can give us the names and addresses of some of your relatives in the Estados Unitos, we can send you to live with them, and maybe your parents can also go live with them later, too! So how about some names, kiddo!?!"

"D'oh, sorry Chico, turns out Su Tio Rico, en Florida? He didn't have his papeles in order! So, he's back in Guatemala, with all of his familia, now, and much happier! Maybe if you give us ANOTHER relative's name, we can really help this time!"