About 46,400 immigrants claiming U.S. children deported in six months

By |

This story originally appeared on iWatchnews.org by the Center for Public Integrity

Immigration officials, advocates clash over policies

A new report is adding fuel to a growing debate over the impact of deportations of illegal immigrants who have roots in communities and U.S.-born children.  Between January and June of 2011, immigration officials deported more than 46,400 people who said they were parents of children who were born in the U.S. and therefore U.S. citizens, according to a new study for Congress prepared by U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement, or ICE. No solid information exists to measure what happens to deported parents’ children. Some leave with their parents, others remain here with family members or on their own and some may go into foster care. In 2009, the Department of Homeland Security issued a report with an estimate that about 100,000 parents of U.S. children were deported over the course of a decade between 1998 and 2007. Congress directed ICE to begin tracking numbers to better gauge the extent of this phenomenon.

Agencies Collaborate To Help Child Immigrants

By |

Collaboration -- how social service agencies and non-profits can do it more effectively -- was the prevailing theme Thursday at a U.S. Immigration Services (USIS) and Department of Homeland Security (DHS) hosted training seminar aimed at helping to better protect endangered immigrant children. Georgia Division of Family Services employees, immigrant children advocates, social workers, community volunteers and others who work with immigrant children, came together for the three-hour session held at the U.S. Citizenship & Immigration Services offices near Northlake Mall. Organizers say the objective was to bring together representatives from local, state and federal agencies, along with non-profit organizations, to provide information and technical assistance. The goal was to inform staffers how to identify and assist abused documented and undocumented immigrant children who are victimized, neglected or abandoned. “It was an idea that was brought to us by DFACS (Department of Children And Family Services),” explains USIS District Director Denise Frazier.