The federal government’s policy of deporting undocumented parents is leaving their U.S.

The federal government’s policy of deporting undocumented parents is leaving their U.S. citizen children with an uncertain future, reports Colorlines.com. According to data obtained by Colorlines.com under the Freedom of Information Act, the government issued 204,810 deportations to parents with U.S. citizens kids between July 2, 2010 and September 31, 2012.

Experts say the total number of parental deportations may be higher because some mothers or fathers are afraid of telling authorities about their children. The figure [see the full data set here] does not include parents whose children are not U.S. citizens. The number raises questions about the impact of government’s immigration policies on families and especially about the future of those children whose parents have been deported.

“We are in a crisis situation in which we need to start taking action immediately to prevent these needless and often-times permanent separations of American children from their families,” California Rep. Lucille Roybal-Allard said in an interview with Colorlines.com. Roybal-Allard, a member of the Congressional Hispanic Caucus, introduced legislation last year that would protect detained and deported immigrant parents from losing their children.

“We have to make sure that all children are protected,” Roybal-Allard said. “We’re talking about U.S. citizens; their pleas and cries for help are pretty much being ignored at this point.”

The Congress had ordered U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) to compile parental deportations data beginning July 1, 2010 and to release it every six months. The government has, however, released such data only once (for the first six months of 2011). The deportation of parents with U.S. citizen children has remained consistent at over 90,000 a year since the government started collecting the data.

“We don’t know how many [children] stay here and how many go with their parents,” said Luis H. Zayas, the dean of the University of Texas School of Social Work who is at work on a federally funded study on the mental health impacts on children when mothers and fathers are deported

“We know there are traumatic effects on the kids,” Zayas added. “We are talking about separating families from children. That’s not something our government should be doing.”

According to Zayas, the children who follow their parents, mostly to Mexico where most of the deportees are from, end up in deep poverty. Most of the children have to endure separation from heir parents for longer periods of time, and some permanently.

A Colorlines.com investigation released in November 2011 estimated that there were at least 5,100 children in foster care who faced significant barriers to reunifying with their detained and deported parents. We projected that if deportation and child welfare policies remained unchanged, another 15,000 kids could face a similar fate over the three years between 2012 and 2014.

ICE officials told Colorlines.com that the pace of deportations did not reflect a failure to implement prosecutorial discretion, as other factors weighed for deportation of most of the parents.

“Evaluation of this data in the past has repeatedly shown that the overwhelming majority of these individuals have significant criminal and/or immigration histories placing them within ICE’s enforcement priorities,” wrote agency spokesperson Gillian Christensen in an emailed statement, “therefore making them ineligible for an exercise of prosecutorial discretion.”

In April, the Arizona Republic reported over 74 percent of deported parents had been convicted of crimes, according to ICE figures. Another 13 percent had been deported previously.

But the devil is in the details […] Figures on deportations though the Secure Communities, an ICE program that picks up immigrants in local jails, reveals that nearly 40 percent of deportees with convictions were charged with the lowest level crimes, including driving offenses.

Advocates say that regardless of the crime of the deported mother or father, the impact on the children is the same.

“Any deportation of a parent is a horrible thing for the child,” said Emily Butera, senior program officer at the Women’s Refugee Commission who advocates in Washington for greater protections for these families. “The reason for the deportation is immaterial for the kid.”

But ICE maintains that it makes every effort to make sure that parents facing deportation are able to make important decisions about their children.

“ICE works with individuals in removal proceedings to ensure they have ample opportunity to make important decisions regarding the care and custody of their children,” Christensen noted. “ICE is sensitive to the fact that encountering those who violate our immigration laws may impact families.”

A slight decrease in parental deportations has been observed in the most recent available data – 20,878 parents were deported between July-September this year, 10 percent less than average. One reason for the slump could be ICE’s failure to obtain deportation orders for parents from judges in recent months.

Concern over what happens to the children of deportees is now squarely at the center of recent advocacy and congressional promises about an immigration reform bill likely to be introduced next year. Last week, dozens of children, some whose own parents have been deported, arrived on Capitol Hill to deliver boxes of letters from other kids asking Congress to stop deporting parents. The “We Belong Together” campaign, as the effort convened by several advocacy groups is called, aims to call attention to the impact of deportations on kids.

White House officials and members of Congress have promised to push an immigration reform bill early next year, after deliberations over the “fiscal cliff” settle. Rep. Roybal-Allard, who joined a briefing with the group of children last week, told Colorlines.com that she and other members of the Congressional Hispanic Caucus are demanding that any comprehensive immigration reform bill focus on family unity. She wants the bill she introduced last year, the Help Separated Families Act, to be folded into the comprehensive immigration legislation passed by Congress. The bill would provide protections for deported parents and for undocumented family members who care for their young relatives

http://colorlines.com/archives/2012/12/us_deports_more_than_200k_parents.html