US Will Now Arrest Relatives Who Smuggle In Children

The Trump administration has begun a new surge of immigration enforcement targeting parents and other relatives who authorities believe smuggled their children into the United States.

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U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement officials confirmed on Thursday that they have begun a new "surge initiative" intended to dismantle human smuggling operations. It includes identifying and arresting the adult sponsors of unaccompanied minors who have paid coyotes or other smugglers to bring the children into the United States. 

"ICE aims to disrupt and dismantle end-to-end the illicit pathways used by transnational criminal organizations and human smuggling facilitators," ICE spokeswoman Sarah Rodriguez said. "The sponsors who have placed children directly into harm's way by entrusting them to violent criminal organizations will be held accountable."

Rodriguez said children whose sponsors were arrested would be placed with another verified relative or guardian, or under the care of the Office of Refugee Resettlement, the federal agency that takes custody of unaccompanied minors. But she didn’t provide details on the number of sponsors who would be targeted or already had been arrested, or what charges would be applied. 

Since October 2013, nearly 170,000 unaccompanied minors have been placed with sponsors in all 50 states and the U.S. Virgin Islands, according to the AP. Many of them are still waiting for their day to seek legal status in immigration court. 

"Arresting those who come forward to sponsor unaccompanied children during their immigration proceedings, often parents, is unimaginably cruel," said Wendy Young, president of Kids in Need of Defense, a nonprofit that has matched thousands of unaccompanied minors with pro bono attorneys in the last eight years. 

"Without caregivers to come forward, many of these children will languish in costly detention centers or be placed in foster care at great expense to states."

President Donald Trump has made immigration enforcement a top priority and has vowed to continue a crackdown on undocumented immigrants to the country. The new initiative is expected to launch a new wave of confusion and fear throughout immigrant communities. 

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Some parents reported receiving surprise door knocks by immigration agents asking about their children and demanding that they be let in, according to government case workers. Once the parents open the door or leave the house they are detained.

Immigrant advocacy groups said they were investigating several cases in Texas, New Jersey and Virginia that may involve sponsors. 

Leon Fresco, a former Justice Department official, said Trump's recent move would likely be challenged in court, given limits on the amount of time children can be detained.

"This sends a signal to young people who would cross the border not to cross, or your relatives will be placed in removal proceedings," Fresco said. "This is a policy change to say a minor is no longer to be treated as a person worthy of our sympathy, but instead to be treated as another unlawful entrant whose entrance must deterred at all costs."