hrw.org
Children in Anguish as US Immigration Arrests Surge
Teresa M., a 30-year-old Guatemalan woman, had just left home for her job manufacturing cabinets when she was stopped by Alabama police in June and asked about her immigration status. A colleague was driving, and Teresa, who had been in the United States for seven years at the time, said she doesn’t know why they were pulled over. Teresa, who has a 12-year-old daughter, and two sons, ages 6 and 1, didn’t have a chance to see her three children. She was taken directly to jail, where she spent the night before federal immigration agents arrived and transferred her to immigration detention, first to Birmingham, then Tuscaloosa, and then to the state of Louisiana. Along the way, immigration agents gave her an impossible choice: bring her children with her to face detention and likely deportation or leave them behind with their father. “I thought of bringing my children,” she said, “but my daughter has had three surgeries and still needs one more next year.” She also said that her 6-year-old son receives speech therapy, a service that would be harder to access in Guatemala. Although she considered taking her youngest child to Guatemala with her, she decided that her children...
