Dozens of members of Congress speak out against deportations of immigrant minors

Judy Chu, a member of the US House of Representatives for the 27th District of California, represented and led a group of 58 members of Congress, who sent a letter to the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), calling for the deportations of unaccompanied immigrant minors to stop and explanations about personal information of the children involved in this maneuver by the Trump administration.

Members of Congress are asking the Trump government details about:

• The well-being of deported minors during the health crisis.
• COVID-19 testing for unaccompanied immigrant minors.
• If federal entities are protecting the integrity of minors, preventing them from being victims of precarious situations or abuse.
• Protocols implemented to carry out deportations of unaccompanied immigrant minors.

Congressmen assure that the Trump administration is not following any kind of guideline to deport hundreds of immigrant minors in the midst of an unprecedented health emergency.

In fact, Chu openly states that “Once again, this administration is endangering children as part of its war on immigrants (…) Lacking a real immigration policy, this administration is instead making a show of detaining and deporting children who are fleeing violence or abuse without due process as is required.”

What is the background to this petition?

Currently, most immigrant minors are facing adverse situations after arriving at the borders of the US, where they yearn to be able to apply for political asylum or refuge to protect their lives.

This is mainly due to the fact that the global Coronavirus pandemic contributed to the Trump administration implementing so-called “express deportations,” which allow border entities to deport undocumented immigrants in a matter of hours or days, including unaccompanied immigrant minors.

The excuse to carry out this maneuver, according to members of Congress, is the health crisis and the massive outbreak of Coronavirus in the North American territory. However, they state that deporting minors could cause irreversible psychological trauma, delaying their development and social integration.

Adding to that, the US’ law states that, to protect their integrity and well-being, unaccompanied minors must be placed under the supervision and custody of the Office of Refugee Resettlement (ORR). However, this is not the procedure currently carried out by border forces, so members of Congress are asking the Trump administration to stop deportations of immigrant minors.

They argue that the Trump government is fulfilling its “anti-immigration agenda” using the sanitary emergency as a pretext and that “to use a pandemic that is out of control due to the administration’s negligence as an excuse to further traumatize refugees is despicable.”

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