Migrant families are claiming they suffered abject cruelty at the hands of employees of the United States Federal Government while detained by U.S. immigration officers at the southern border. Eight immigrant families filed claims with the U.S. federal government February 11 accusing the officers of taking away their children without providing them information and for mocking them and denying them a chance to even say goodbye to their children. Each of the families is demanding over $3 million, yet the exact amount is unclear at this time.
The families claim their children are traumatized by the separation, cruelty, and inhumane treatment they suffered at the hands of immigration officers. One Guatemalan mother said an officer taunted her by saying, “Happy Mother’s Day” after he told her that her 5-year-old son would be taken from her. The claims were filed under the Federal Tort Claims Act to the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) and the Department of Homeland Security, and the federal government now has six months to decide its move.
Thousands of Migrants Torn Apart
The Trump administration has admitted to separating over 2,600 families in 2018 through its “zero tolerance” policy of cracking down on migration from Central America at the U.S.-Mexico border. Because the Trump administration divided thousands of other families before the policy was publicly known, it’s actually unclear as to how many families have actually been separated because government agencies have not been keeping accurate enough records since the program was implemented.
Under the zero tolerance policy, U.S. Justice Department began filing criminal charges against many immigrants for illegal entry, which is a misdemeanor, or re-entry into the United States, which is a felony. The goal, according to the Trump Administration, was to create consequences for families breaking the law. But since the criminal justice system can’t hold families together, children were separated from their parents and then deemed “unaccompanied” and placed with the Department of Health and Human Services. The DHS placed children of all ages in shelters or sought sponsors to take them in. When a federal judge ordered an end to these separations in June 2018, government agencies had to reconnect 2,000 children previously separated from their parents.
One Lawyer Speaks Out
One lawyer for the families, Stanton Jones of the law firm Arnold & Porter, said the migrant families are entitled to a large sum of monetary compensation due to the “inexplicable cruelty” endured while detained. Jones said, “They are entitled to compensation from the government for intentional infliction of emotional distress…emotionally traumatizing children to try to achieve a policy objective very clearly meets all the legal elements of the offense intentional infliction of emotional distress.”
Jones is the attorney behind a separate lawsuit seeking $60 million in damages from the government on behalf of Yazmin Juárez, the mother of a baby who died shortly after being released from U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) detention. The mother and daughter spent approximately 10 days sleeping on the floor of a cage along with 25 other people. The 19-month-old fell ill and later died after leaving the Dilley Residential Center in McAllen, Texas.
The Department of Homeland Security has not responded to these claims at the time of this writing, and the DHS has only said it was not involved in the initial separations.
