[tweetmeme source= ‘yourtwittername’ only_single=false]Michelle Chen at Colorlines reports on recent “child welfare intervention” policies in which states terminate the parental rights of undocumented immigrants and take away their children. Chen quotes a paper by Prof. Marcia Anne Yablon-Zug of the University of South Carolina School of Law:
Increasingly, states are removing the children of undocumented immigrant parents and then terminating their parental rights. Such terminations represent a significant, but largely unnoticed, change in the law. There is no Supreme Court case or Congressional Act heralding this development. This is an unofficial change that comes directly from the child welfare agencies and family courts and their shifting conception of what justifies the termination of parental rights.
The article also points to a case in which a child was taken from his Guatemalan mother by a US judge and placed with a richer American family who the judge claimed were more “fit” parents.
Meanwhile, Alto Arizona reports on a delegation of children from Arizona and throughout the country who, on July 15, 2010, and along with mothers, aunts, and women’s advocates, testified before Congress about the police/ICE violence their families have endured. Here are some excerpts:
It was five or six thirty in the morning when my sister jumps on the bed crying saying that she overheard my dad talking to the babysitter. We decided to talk to my dad and he told us what was going on. He promised us that she would be back the next day, but she wasn’t. So my sisters and brothers were really upset. They started crying because they wanted their mother. But it was really painful to tell them, oh she’ll be there the next day, and keep on lying to them until she came home. It was really heartbreaking because we saw her with a broken jaw.
– young person giving testimony
Children are being terrorized and traumatized by these programs that are taking effect in Arizona. They are being torn apart by ski mask officers that take their moms away.
– Sylvia Herrera, Puente Arizona
I live in Maryland and I’m from El Salvador. I have a daughter that is 1.5 years old. One day I called the police because of a domestic violence issue. I thought they would help me, but instead they began harassing me because they thought I was selling illegal phone cards. I was detained for 5 days. I thought I would never see my daughter and husband again. They released me, but with a tracking device. Now I have an order for deportation.
– woman giving testimony
Here’s the full video:
The relationship between gender violence and immigration violence is profound. Anti-immigrant racism and violence is destructive to immigrant families and puts immigrant women and queer/trans folks at more risk for domestic & sexual violence, economic exploitation, police brutality, and reproductive assaults.
The National Women’s Caucus Against ICE and Police Collaboration has written a letter asking President Obama to stop ICE and local police collaboration programs, such as 287(g) and “Secure Communities,” which opened the door to the passage of Arizona’s SB1070. Here’s an excerpt:
We, supporters of women’s and children’s rights, urge you to address the growing human rights threat against women and children in the United States as a result of failed immigration enforcement programs. In the last two years, the Immigration and Customs Enforcement Bureau has expanded programs that enlist local law enforcement to help enforce federal immigration law with particularly disastrous consequences for women and children. Programs like 287(g) and the “Secure Communities” initiatives undermine family safety, deter women survivors of violence from seeking protection or help, facilitate workplace harassment and employer abuse, and create tremendous suffering and psychological trauma for separated mothers and children.
Please sign on to this letter here.
Art by Favianna Rodriguez
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