Immigration Raids Divide Families

[NNN0LHI]

http://hosted.ap.org/dynamic/stories/D/DIVIDED_FAMILIES?SITE=ILKAN&SECTION=HOME&TEMPLATE=DEFAULT

HOUSTON (AP) -- They are the hidden side of the government's stepped-up efforts to track down and deport illegal immigrants: Toddlers stranded at day care centers or handed over to ill-equipped relatives. Siblings suddenly left in charge of younger brothers and sisters.

When illegal-immigrant parents are swept up in raids on homes and workplaces, the children are sometimes left behind - a complication that underscores the difficulty in enforcing immigration laws against people who have put down roots and begun raising families in the U.S.

Three million American-born children have at least one parent who is an illegal immigrant; one in 10 American families has mixed immigration status, meaning at least one member is an immigrant here illegally, according to the Pew Center for Hispanic Research and the office of U.S. Rep. Jose Serrano. Children born in the U.S. are automatically American citizens and are not subject to deportation.

This past week in Massachusetts, most of the 361 workers picked up in a raid at a New Bedford leather-goods factory that made vests and backpacks for the U.S. military were women with children, setting off what Democratic Gov. Deval Patrick called a "humanitarian crisis."

Community activists scrambled to locate the children, offer infant-care tips to fathers unfamiliar with warming formula and changing diapers, and gather donations of baby supplies. One baby who was breast-feeding had to be hospitalized for dehydration because her mother remained in detention, authorities said.

[BleedingHeartPatriot]

1. Why are we separating families and putting them in detention centers? For a crime of trying to

escape poverty and make a better life for themselves? MKJ

[pstans]

2. I am a teacher in Marshalltown, Iowa where the raids took place in Dec.

I wrote about some of the things I say on my blog at http://commoniowan.blogspot.com/2006/12/day-after-immigration-raid.html.

The story that was most heart wrenching here was about a young baby that was nursing, whose mother was arrested. The baby was taken to the Catholic church and cared for a few days until the mother was released.