The conversation
Biden’s immigration reform would bring families separated by deportation
A mother who was deported to Mexico reconnects with her daughters at a family reunification event held on the U.S.-Mexico border in November 2017. Sandy Huffaker / Getty Images Hundreds of thousands of immigrant families have been separated by deportation from the United States , in many cases with a parent on one side of the border and children on the other, according to estimates by the Urban Policy Institute and the Migration Policy Institute. Reunification is a priority in President Joe Biden’s immigration reform proposal and in the bills that the House and Senate will debate in the coming weeks. Both projects have provisions to preserve the “family unit”. This includes giving immigration judges greater discretion in cases of deportation and allowing the national security secretary or attorney general to waive deportation orders or allow deported parents of children of U.S. citizens to return to the United States. Under US immigration laws, any noncitizen – including legal permanent residents – can be deported for committing a serious crime. Undocumented immigrants can be removed simply because they are in the country without a valid visa and banned for 10 years or more. Since 2016, I coordinate a digital narration project called “Humanizing Deportation”, which published personal narratives, in audiovisual format, of more than 250 migrants. It is the largest qualitative database in the world on the human consequences of deportation and other severe penalties under United States immigration law. Our research shows that deportation does not only harm migrants who are deported – it also severely harms their families, especially children. Here are two of those stories, told by the separate families themselves. Our project does not check the stories of migrants, and what you read here is based on your memories of events. The story of Tania Tania Mendoza arrived in California in 1989 at the age of 3, brought by her parents from Mexico, without papers, to escape from poverty. In 2010, Tania was arrested after a domestic dispute with a guy she was dating. Although no charges were filed and Tania had no criminal record, she was handed over to the Immigration and Customs Department and deported. She was 24 years old and a mother. Just two years later, Tania would have qualified as an undocumented newcomer, or “Dreamer”, and would have been protected from deportation by the Obama-era Child Deferred Action. Her young daughter remained with the child’s father in Los Angeles. Tania remembers her daughter seeing her being detained by the Los Angeles Police Department: “It was the last time I saw her,” she told us in tears. Tania Mendoza on the Mexican side of the California border wall. Mendoza was deported to Mexico, from where she left at the age of 3, in 2010. Leopoldo Peña Tania says that separating her daughter was the most difficult part of life after deportation. Since she shared custody with her father, she could not take her daughter with her to Mexico without his consent. Mother and daughter kept in touch by phone until 2016, when the father – with whom she was not married – cut off all contact. “He took her phone and decided she was better off without me,” said Tania. “Then my heart broke even more.” After two years without contact, a family court judge granted Tania the rights to visit by phone – the best power of attorney to enforce the existing shared custody agreement due to Tania’s departure from the country. Tania has been communicating regularly with her daughter, but hasn’t seen her, except on a screen, for over 10 years. Nowadays, she says, receiving a simple text like “Hi, mom, how was your day?” fills Tania with feelings of hope. Losing a mother or father Separation from the family made headlines during the Trump administration, when asylum-seeking Central American families were separated at the border. About 500 families remain separated today. People march in New York City against the Trump administration’s family separation policy. Spencer Platt / Getty Images But the family split also occurred during the Obama administration. Between 2009 and 2016, the U.S. expelled an average of 383,000 immigrants a year, according to data from the Department of Homeland Security. This outpaces Trump, whose government deported 325,000 annually during the first three years of his administration. George W. Bush’s administration averaged 252,000 deportations a year. Many deported immigrants who shared their stories with us tell about the deep and lasting damage inflicted when their removal meant that their children lost their mother or father. Parents are rarely able to support or care for their families abroad. And the trauma of losing a loved one for an extended, indefinite period can be significant, especially for children. Psychologists have observed anxiety, depression, hyperactivity and other symptoms commonly associated with post-traumatic stress disorder in children who have lost a parent to deportation. Why don’t deported parents just take their children with them? As Tania’s story shows, this is not always practical, or even possible. Rosa and Zuri When Rosa Ortega’s husband was taken to an immigration detention center in San Bernardino, California, in 2017, and then deported to his native Peru, it was a devastating ordeal for the couple’s three young children. In the story that Rosa and her daughter Zuri recorded for us that same year, Rosa says that she did not know how to explain to the children why her father was taken away from the house in handcuffs, nor to answer their questions about how long he would be away. A family visit to the ICE immigration detention center, administered by ICE, in San Bernardino County, California. John Moore / Getty Images Rosa’s eldest son, Zuri, a teenager, had to step in and assume the responsibilities usually assumed by her father. “Instead of him being there [my sister’s] first day of kindergarten, it was me, ”said Zuri. She said that losing her father forced her to “mature and grow” and that she deals with “more than you should” because she is “playing that role as a mother, but still being a child at the same time. ”Zuri is among the thousands of children who can see their father again under Biden’s immigration reform plan. But you have to go through the Chamber and the Senate first. This article was republished from The Conversation, a non-profit news site dedicated to sharing ideas from academic experts. It was written by: Robert McKee Irwin, University of California, Davis. Read more: Living on the edge: are America’s deportation laws traumatizing immigrants? The long history of family separation in the USA and how the trauma endures Robert McKee Irwin does not work, consult, hold shares or receive funding from any company or organization that would benefit from this article and did not disclose relevant affiliations beyond his appointment academic.