At just 9 years old, Fernando Ochoa is struggling to prevent his father’s deportation for fear that he might be separated from him for the third time, although President Joe Biden ordered a 100-day moratorium on deportations and created a force. family reunification task.
On Wednesday morning, outside an immigration court, Fernando handed his lawyer a letter he wrote to Biden asking in Spanish “from the bottom of my heart that you let my father go free”.
Fernando and his father, Ubaldo Ochoa Lopez, fled Guatemala more than two years ago to seek asylum in the United States. Instead, Fernando, who was 6 at the time, was separated from his father by immigration authorities. He was one of at least 2,800 migrant children who were separated from their parents in 2018 as part of President Donald Trump’s “zero tolerance” policy, implemented to dissuade migrants from seeking asylum.
Two months later, Fernando and his father met again.
“During the first 35 days of these two months, Ubaldo was unable to even contact Fernando. So those 35 days of zero contact, without knowing what was going on, were very traumatic for both of them, ”said Andani Alcantara Diaz, a lawyer, said in a press conference Wednesday.
Once they were together, Ochoa Lopez and his son resumed their legal efforts to obtain asylum, but they were separated for the second time in October, when the Immigration and Customs Department, or ICE, detained Ochoa Lopez a month after he was convicted. for driving while intoxicated, said Alcantara.
“It was just a Class B misdemeanor, but ICE treated it as a major crime and decided that it is reason enough not to allow Ubaldo to be with his son, who has no other father in the United States.” she said.
‘Punished twice’
Ochoa Lopez has been at the Pearsall Detention Center in Texas for four months.
Texas immigrants’ rights advocacy group RAICES has been helping Fernando with his asylum case while urging ICE to meet him with his father, Erika Andiola, the organization’s defense chief, said during the press conference.
Andiola said it is important to note that Ochoa Lopez “went through the criminal justice system” when he was charged and convicted last year.
“If it were someone else, someone who was born in this country, if it was someone else, maybe they would be back with their son, but they are not. He is being punished twice for something that has already happened – even after what we, as a country did to take his son, “said Andiola.
Fernando wrote in his letter to Biden: “I am very sad for my father who is not with me. During Christmas, I was saddened by my father who was not with me. I am very sad to see other parents playing with their children because I cannot play with my father or receive a hug from him. “
Alcantara said he had completed several requests to ICE calling for the release of Ochoa Lopez, most recently on Monday, after the Biden government announced new guidelines on immigration enforcement priorities. Public safety guidelines say to prioritize those “who have been convicted of an ‘aggravated crime’.”
“The reality is that the ICE always has the power to leave anyone out of detention, and they are choosing not to,” she said. “This is harming his son, who is 9 years old and cries on the phone with Ubaldo because he hasn’t seen his father in a long time.
“They are choosing to keep a father and son separate that they had already separated and traumatized,” she added.
ICE did not respond to an email asking for comment.
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Biden assumed the presidency bearing the brunt of Trump’s hardline immigration policies, as well as criticism of the record number of deportations under former President Barack Obama when he was vice president.
There has been an urgent urge for progressive supporters and immigration advocates to do things differently.
An earlier executive order by Biden establishing a 100-day moratorium on deportations pending application review was suspended by a federal judge in response to a lawsuit in Texas. But the decision did not require the ICE to schedule deportations, and the agency, which is part of the Department of Homeland Security, has deported at least 269 people to Guatemala and Honduras in recent days.
More deportation flights are scheduled this week to Jamaica, the Dominican Republic, Haiti, Cameroon and Honduras, in addition to last week’s deportation to Mexico of a woman who witnessed the 2019 anti-Latin mass shooting at a Walmart store in El Paso, Texas.
“If Ubaldo is sent back to Guatemala, Fernando will be left here without parents, which is already quite damaging, but given his history of forced separations by the government, it would be very damaging for him,” said Alcantara, adding that he would be left “to fight his asylum case on his own”.
A group of 120 law professors and legal experts called on the Biden administration to hold ICE officers accountable for executive orders and other directives that reflect “the president’s intention to rebuild the immigration system in a way that respects human rights and due process, “the group said in a press release Tuesday.
They sent a letter to the recently confirmed Secretary of Homeland Security, Alejandro Mayorkas, urging the agency to “use all the tools of the Public Prosecutor’s discretion at its disposal to comply with the Biden government’s immigration policies and prevent ongoing deportations of claimants. asylum and families “.
They warned that continued practices “will inevitably result in the continuation of repressive practices that send asylum seekers back to their persecutors and destabilize families and communities.”
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