In a shelter on Long Island, Nico has been forced to make a decision much too traumatic for any 14-year-old: return to Guatemala and risk death, or stay in the U.S. to pursue relief and potentially never see his parents again.
After crossing the border a few months ago he was separated from his father, who was then deported in mid-July. Nico, whose name has been changed because he is underage, is now left to make an impossible choice without any parental guidance.
When Alexander Holtzman, an attorney at the Safe Passage Project, talks to his client about his future, the 14-year-old looks at the ground while tears well in his eyes. After discovering his father had been deported, Nico drew stick figures of his parents and himself standing under rain clouds on opposite sides of the page, Holtzman said.
“I think the decision was hard for him to make,” said Holtzman. “He’s a 14-year-old kid trying to make a very adult decision about what his future will be … and trying to navigate a complex legal system that doesn’t have his or his father’s best interest at heart.”
Like Nico, most of the 559 children who are still separated from their parents ― the majority of whom have been deported ―will also be forced into this decision. They will need to choose between seeking safety in the U.S. or reuniting with their mother and fathers back home in potentially life-threatening situations.
Though many parents say Immigration and Customs Enforcement officers coerced them into signing deportation forms, the government has no plans to allow them back into America to seek due process. Lawyers and advocates are now scrambling to locate deported parents in Central America to ask if they want their children to stay in the U.S. or return home.
But because of inadequate government contact information, these parents have been extremely difficult to find. And so many children who expected to seek relief alongside their families will have to make a colossal decision about their future by themselves.
…While older kids might recognize the danger of returning home, younger ones often don’t fully understand or know the horrific details of why they fled. Lawyers say small children are so traumatized from the being forcibly separated from their mothers and fathers that all they can do is cry and ask to see their families again. “Maybe a teenager can tell you what happened [back home] and form an asylum claim,” said Amalie Silverstein, an immigration attorney at Catholic Charities. “[But] kids this small cannot.”
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Migrant Kids Choose Between Possible Death And Never Seeing Parents Again
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