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Running Head: MASS DEPORTATION AND THE SEPARATION OF FAMILIES

Mass Deportation and the Separation of Families

Review of Literature

Fernanda Velazquez

The University of Texas at El Paso

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Running Head: MASS DEPORTATION AND THE SEPARATION OF FAMILIES

Abstract

The immigration system has faced a lot of backlash over the course of the last year, when

president Trump enforced a “Zero-Tolerance” Policy which separated children from their parents

when crossing the border illegally. This issue has gone viral over all sorts of media platforms and

eventually pushed president Trump to pass an executive order halting the separation of families

at the border. Below, we analyze the facts and the effects that these separations have had on

families as well as people’s opinions on these separations as well.

Introduction

In current years, immigration laws have been reaching a “Zero-Tolerance” level that has affected

the lives of many immigrants negatively. Since the Obama administration, and administrations

before, immigration laws have always been enforced and detaining illegal immigrants was not

unusual. However, since the beginning of the Trump administration, these laws have been

practiced in a ruthless manner and have gone as far as to separate young children from their

parents and justifying this cruel behavior by claiming it is “part of the law”. President Trump

recently signed an executive order that halted the separation of families at the border indefinitely,

but that still does not justify the fact that he actively encouraged it in the first place. The

following research questions were chosen in order to further investigate if President Trump

really had the authority to enforce such laws and if they even existed at all in the first place, as he

had claimed.

1. What is The Flores Settlement and how does it relate to the immigration laws that were

being enforced earlier this year?

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Running Head: MASS DEPORTATION AND THE SEPARATION OF FAMILIES

2. Were children and parents informed as to why they had to be separated when crossing the

border illegally?

3. Were parents able to track their children, have access to information on their

whereabouts, or contact with their children at all while they were separated?

4. What psychological effects could the separation of children from their parents have on

the children?

The Flores Settlement

Immigration laws have always been a hot button issue in the United States. Even since

the Obama presidency, authorities were trying to regulate the incoming immigrants in the Unites

States. However, when Mr. Trump assumed his presidential term, he began enforcing these laws

in a rather unusual manner. Many people have heard of or seen pictures and maybe even footage

of so-called “holding camps” where children were being held captive. These camps were held up

to very low living standards, holding these children in cages like animals. Besides this being

plain inhumane and cruel, there is actually a law that is supposed to prevent this from happening,

known as The Flores Settlement. Back in 1997, the District Court for the Central District of

California approved an agreement regulating the detention, release and treatment of children

under the custody of federal immigration authorities. (Refugees International, 2018). This

settlement was created when a mother was separated from her daughter when they migrated to

the U.S. seeking asylum back in the 80’s. The federal government possesses very few procedural

safeguards that protect children and their families from being treated unjustly when being

detained in the United States, which is why the Flores Settlement isn’t very known to the public.
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Running Head: MASS DEPORTATION AND THE SEPARATION OF FAMILIES

Entering the United States as an undocumented immigrant is considered a civil infraction, not a

criminal offense. (Heinonline.org). Although this is the case, authorities treat undocumented

immigration as a criminal act. The main difference between a criminal offense and civil

infraction is that a criminal offense could often result in the placement of an individual in prison,

an individual is given a fine, etc. while a civil infraction is a smaller violation of a law less

serious than a misdemeanor. Authorities treating undocumented immigration as a criminal

offense results in not giving undocumented immigrants the same as safeguards as they would a

civil offense, such as the right to counsel. Going back to the first question and how the Flores

Settlement relates to the immigration laws enforced earlier this year, this document should be

able to protect any children and their families from being detained in cruel and inhumane

conditions. In a podcast created called “Trumpcast” by Jacob Weisberg, Weisberg interviewed

immigration reporter Jean Guerrero, who personally visited a family detention center back in

2017. Guerrero described the conditions of the center to be very poor, and even said she was told

she was not allowed to record anything inside the facility and her and her crew would be kicked

out of the facility if they did so. Guerrero and her team went into the facility and recognized that

this particular center was filled with only boys, no parents, and the girls were in another facility

(when asked about the girls’ facility, Guerrero’s team was told it was a little worse). Images and

videos of these facilities also flooded social media platforms like Twitter and Facebook, which

caused outrage from both sides of the issue. Many people argued that president Trump was not

the one who created the law, that even American people are separated from their children when

they are convicted for criminal activity; which are all true and fair allegations. However, the

undocumented presence of an individual in the United States is actually a civil infraction, NOT a

criminal offense (Marquette Law Review), which means that undocumented children coming
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Running Head: MASS DEPORTATION AND THE SEPARATION OF FAMILIES

into the United States with their parents, unless faced with danger if they stay with the parent, do

NOT need to be separated from their parents.

Why are we separating these families?

As stated above, children are always separated from their parents when they commit

criminal offenses, or whenever the parent becomes a threat to themselves and the child’s well-

being. However, in a lot of cases where these children were being separated from their parents,

authorities failed to inform the parents as to why they were being separated even when they were

not committing any criminal activity. One example of this was a Brazilian mother who identified

herself as just Jocelyn because she was fleeing domestic violence, while her 14-year-old son was

fleeing gang threats. Jocelyn said she hoped to apply for asylum when she arrived to the U.S.,

but when they did, her son was taken from her without any warning. "I didn't know where they

were taking him," she said of her son. "They didn't tell me. I asked many times. They just said

'Don't worry.'" Jocelyn is just one of the many parents who came to the U.S. to seek asylum and

were met with cruel treatment.

On the other hand, it is also true that crossing the border and asking for asylum does NOT

guarantee it, and it does NOT make illegal entry into the country legal. It is true, as stated above,

that illegal entry is a civil infraction, but it could also be punishable by law under 18 U.S.C.

3559, with up to six months of imprisonment for first offenders. It is true, that law DOES allow

this—but nowhere in the law does it justify the separation of children from their parents.

Effect on separating children from their parents

When a parent commits a crime of any kind in the United States, authorities are required

to remove their children from their care in order to protect the children. However, it is also true
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Running Head: MASS DEPORTATION AND THE SEPARATION OF FAMILIES

that once the parents are released, the system does its best to return the children to their parents,

because they encourage families staying together. This is because a lot of children are still in

their formative years when they’re separated from their parents, and being separated can cause

great trauma to the child. ICE were in charge of separating these families, but they were not in

charge of caring for the children. The Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) were in

charge for caring and providing shelter, and even psychiatric help to children separated from

their parents. The HHS did not openly oppose to the separation of these families, but they

acclaimed they did not recommend it, for it could cause irreversible damage to the children. Ever

Reyes-Mejia is a father of two children, one three-year-old boy and a five-month-old babygirl

who he was separated from for three and a half months. In a heartbreaking video that has spread

all over social media, Ever and the mother of his children are reunited with their children in

Houston, Texas. At the time of the meeting, Sammy, the three-year-old, squirms away when his

mother tries to hold him. The mother begs him to let her hold him, reminding him that she’s his

mother—but the young child keeps running away. This is just one of the most popular example

of the kind of psychological trauma that these children are going through when they’re separated

from their parents without knowing why. Many of these children may even think their parents

are just abandoning altogether. On top of that, a lot of these children as young as Sammy, are

being asked to appear on their own to their deportation proceedings. “We were representing a 3-

year-old in court recently who had been separated from the parents. And the child — in the

middle of the hearing — started climbing up on the table…It really highlighted the absurdity of

what we’re doing with these kids.” Said Lindsay Toczylowski, the executive director of

Immigrant Defenders Law Center in Los Angeles. She highlighted the absurdity of having
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Running Head: MASS DEPORTATION AND THE SEPARATION OF FAMILIES

toddlers, most of whom do not even speak English, having to represent themselves in court. This,

again, will only result in trauma for the child.

Primary research

When conducting a survey to find out just how informed people that live in the

borderland are about the immigration situation, 75% of the people surveyed believed the way the

immigration laws were enforced were unfair, and 62% said they don’t believe the issue got

enough media coverage. The following is a quote from an anonymous survey taker, “I strongly

believe the way the trump administration handled immigration this year was unfair and unjust

because children were treated immorally by being torn away from their parents. As a result of

this, majority of them may be scarred for life from the experience.”

Immigration is and will always be a controversial issue. While many people agree with

the Trump administration, they don’t support the separation of families—and vise versa. The

facts stand that illegal migration into the country will cause in prosecution, but the conditions in

which many of these people are held and the psychological trauma they experience from them

are also pretty clear facts.

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Running Head: MASS DEPORTATION AND THE SEPARATION OF FAMILIES

 These are two of the

questions from the survey
conducted about family
separations

 A child being taken away

from their mother after
crossing the border.
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Running Head: MASS DEPORTATION AND THE SEPARATION OF FAMILIES

Works Cited

 T. (2018, June 19). The Reality of Family Separation and "Zero-Tolerance [Web log
post]. Retrieved September 10, 2018.
 Lopez, R. M. (2012). Codifying the flores settlement agreement: Seeking to protect
immigrant children in u.s. custody. Marquette Law Review 95(4), 1635-1678.
 Knopf, A. (2018). Family separation policy reminds all parents how important you
are. Brown University Child & Adolescent Behavior Letter, 34(10), 1–2.
https://doi.org/10.1002/cbl.30331
 Fact Sheet: Family Separation at the U.S.-Mexico Border. (n.d.). Retrieved from
https://immigrationforum.org/article/factsheet-family-separation-at-the-u-s-mexico-
border/
 Hennessy-Fiske, M. (2018, February 20). U.S. is separating immigrant parents and
children to discourage others, activists say. Retrieved from
https://www.latimes.com/nation/la-na-immigrant-family-separations-2018-story.html#
 Turley, J. (2018, July 12). Seeking asylum does not make illegal entry into America
legal. Retrieved from https://thehill.com/opinion/immigration/396708-seeking-asylum-
does-not-make-illegal-entry-into-america-legal
 ACLU. (2018, August 24). Retrieved December 08, 2018, from
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vsBaFHnMu8k

 Knopf, A. (2018, September 10). Family separation policy reminds all parents how
important you are. Retrieved from
https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/epdf/10.1002/cbl.30331

 Fact Sheet: Family Separation at the U.S.-Mexico Border. (n.d.). Retrieved from
https://immigrationforum.org/article/factsheet-family-separation-at-the-u-s-mexico-
border/

 Jewett, C., Luthra, S., & Kaiser Health News. (2018, June 28). Immigrant toddlers
ordered to appear in court alone. Retrieved from
https://www.texastribune.org/2018/06/27/immigrant-toddlers-ordered-appear-court-
alone/