US may have violated own rules in “deporting” US citizen girl.

Mar 23, 11 | Posted in Arizona | 2 comments

In sending back to Guatemala a US citizen girl whose parents are still in the United States, authorities with the Customs and Border Protection Agency (CBP) may have violated a settlement that was entered into during the nineties to determine the treatment of minors in their custody, said a constitutional lawyer who conducted the lawsuit in the late eighties.
According to attorney Peter Schey, a lawyer for the Center for Human Rights and Constitutional Law in Los Angeles, CBP and all agencies that deal with migration issues must do more than just a good faith effort to reunite a citizen child with his family, under the Flores settlement that was put in place in 1997.
Schey said that in the late eighties his organization sued the immigration authorities, and after much litigation reached a settlement agreement that regulates “what they can do with a minor who is under custody.”
The case was called Flores and went all the way to the Supreme Court, leading to an agreement under which the authorities pledged to do everything possible to reunite the child to his parents, a legal guardian, adult relative or other entity designated by the parent or even an authorized program.
“We have to determine if they followed the agreement in this case,” Schey said.
The girl, Emily Samantha Ruiz, age 4, born in the U.S., was traveling with his grandfather back in the country last March 11 when he was arrested by immigration authorities at Dulles Airport in Washington D.C.. His parents, who are undocumented, live in Long Island.
The grandfather apparently had an H2B work visa, said lawyer David Sperling, of Long Island, who has been advising the family in recent days.
“They came from Guatemala, through El Salvador, on a Taca flight” said Sperling. “The flight was headed to New York, but diverted to Washington. At Dulles Airport they were detained when authorities found something questionable in the record of the grandfather.”
On Monday, a spokeperson for CBP gave a version of events that contradicts the one given the father of the girl, said that the father was given the opportunity to pick up the girl at Dulles Airport (the family lives in Long Island, 300 miles away).
“We told him to come and look and he declined, the family made all the decisions,” said Lloyd Esterling, spokesman for the CBP in Washington.
When the reporter asked what would happen to the father, who has a wife and a son in Long Island city, brother of Emily, his agent said “He would be processed and let go on his own recognizance.”
That process probably would have ended with a notice of the immigration courts to appear due to his undocumented status and put in deportation proceedings, lawyers said.
Esterling said that such cases are always trying to reunite the child with relatives.
On the other hand, the girl’s father, Leonel Ruiz, told the media that when he spoke with an agent of the Agency for Control and Border Protection (CBP), he was given two options.
“They said they would send her to a children’s center in Virginia or sent back to Guatemala,” said the father to a local Univision channel in a report aired on Long Island and is available on the web.
The father said he asked for the return to Guatemala, the option that seemed best that was offered.
“Parents were terrified,” said the lawyer. “They thought they would end up putting the child up for adoption or foster care.
According to counsel Sperling, the girl, Emily Samantha Ruiz, is now in a village three hours from Guatemala City, where she returned with hes grandfather.
“Generally, CBP strives to reunite U.S. citizen children with their parents. If the parents choose not to take custody of their children, CBP works with other agencies to ensure the children’s safety and well being, up to and including releasing them into the custody of other relatives.” , said the CBP spokesman.
But the lawyer Sperling said the girl’s father “never was given the option to pick her up ….”
“Why would he go on TV with his face and his name, disclosing he is undocumented if he was so afraid of being deported that he would not pick her up”, said Sperling. “This guy has cojones”.
The reporter was unable to speak directly with the girl’s father as attorney advised him not to. “They are scared and many media have asked to speak to him,” said Sperling.
For now, the attorney says, Emily is still in Guatemala and he will travel there next Monday, with permission given by the parents, to bring her back to the United States.
The case highlights the precarious situation of many citizen children whose parents have no legal status and how their civil rights are secondary because U.S. immigration policy and the situation of adults in their care.
“Usually what happens is that a citizen child actually ends up being deported with her parents who are undocumented” said Kevin Johnson, law professor at UC Davis. “This case is different, this girl is a citizen.”