ICE Is Pressuring Separated Parents to Choose Deportation
Immigrants and lawyers say the agency is trying to “coerce or confuse” detainees into thinking deportation is the only way to get their kids back.
Updated on July 6, 2018 at 12:03 p.m.
Los Fresnos, Texas—Lilian is getting desperate. Locked inside the sprawling Port Isabel Service Processing Center, she has not seen her 5-year-old daughter in more than two weeks, and now deportation officers are offering a deal: Drop your asylum claim and agree to be deported, they say, and we’ll let you see your daughter again.
On June 12, Lilian and her daughter, Victoria, spent the night in a chilly Border Patrol processing center after they crossed the border near Laredo, Texas. Two days later, because of the Trump administration’s “zero tolerance” policy, agents took Lilian to a federal
