The negative impact of illegal immigrant raids on innocent children
The Associated Press has an article todayon the other side of these ICE raids - U.S.-born children being left in the care of relatives or, worse, put into foster care after their illegal immigrant parents are sent off to jails (often in other states) following workplace raids. Again, how does this promote family values? How does further burdening the foster care system help our society? These poor children must be scared to death that their parents will drop them off at school one day and never return. Imagine being 13 and faced with staying in the U.S. in foster care or following your deported parent to a country you’ve never known and perhaps a language you don’t speak.
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.
