Two advocacy groups have filed a complaint with the Department of Homeland Security watchdog saying that U.S. border officials forcibly separated a pregnant Honduran asylum-seeker from her family after they asked for safety at the U.S. border, ultimately forcing her and her U.S. citizen newborn back into Mexico just two days after she gave birth in a U.S. hospital.
“The Office of Inspector General complaint calls for an urgent investigation of the U.S. Border Patrol’s treatment of this family, including the forced expulsion of the newborn U.S. citizen and his mother to Mexico, as well as the forced removal of the father and son,” the Jewish Family Service of San Diego (JFS) and ACLU Foundation of San Diego & Imperial Counties (ACLUF-SDIC) said. They wrote “both the father and mother expressed their fear of returning to Mexico,” but were sent back by officials anyway.
The Jewish Family Service of San Diego and ACLU Foundation of San Diego & Imperial Counties said in a statement that the then-pregnant mother, partner, and 9-year-old son fled to the U.S. a year ago, “after gangs extorted them, made repeated death threats, beat the nine-year old with a gun (requiring several stitches) and took over their house.” But like tens of thousands of other asylum-seekers, the family was forced by the Trump administration to wait out their cases in Mexico.
When March came around, the family followed the rules and boarded a taxi to go to a U.S. port of entry to be escorted to their immigration hearing, only to be “accosted and detained by a group of armed men who attempted to extort them,” the document said. “They were detained by these men for more than an hour before they were finally freed.” Not only had they been violently accosted, the family later found out their court date had been cancelled due to the novel coronavirus pandemic. No one from the government had told them.
No longer able to tolerate unsafe conditions while still waiting in Mexico, the family again tried to present themselves to U.S. officials on June 27. “The Border Patrol immediately separated the family,” JFS and ACLUF-SDIC said in the statement.
“The mother, who was experiencing pain after falling during their journey, was sent to the hospital. Despite their objections, the father and son were forced to return to Mexico in the middle of the night. At the hospital, the mother gave birth to her son—a natural-born U.S. citizen. Two days later, the Border Patrol forced both to return to Mexico as well. Notably, this U.S. citizen child does not have legal immigration status in Mexico.”
The groups said that during each encounter with U.S. border officials, the family insisted they were scared of being sent back to Mexico. They were ignored in violation of law, the organizations said: “The complaint notes that the Border Patrol twice failed to ensure that the family had access to non-refoulement interviews, a violation of U.S. law and agency policy.”
This family that now includes a U.S.-born citizen is still waiting in Mexico, unlawfully sent back to danger.
“This case reflects many of the lived horrors of both the so-called ‘Migrant Protection Protocols’ and Border Patrol impunity,” ACLUF-SDIC senior staff attorney Mitra Ebadolahi said in the statement. “No family should have to endure what this family has experienced. Together with Jewish Family Service, we are demanding a full investigation. The agency must be held to account for its disregard of basic human rights and its policy and legal transgressions.”