Detention and Deportation of Fathers

"“Something else could be done,” his 13-year-old son Junior pleaded to the New York-based advocacy group Families for Freedom, “because kids need their fathers.”

Right now the physical, emotional, financial and legal status of American-born minors like Junior can neither delay nor prevent their parents’ detention or deportation. Last year, Representative José E. Serrano, a Democrat from New York, introduced a bill that would allow immigration judges to take into consideration the fates of American-born children while reviewing their parents’ cases. The bill has gone nowhere, while more and more American-citizen children continue to either lose their parents or their country."

By Edwidge Danticat, NY Times Editorial Link to Article (last visited 6-17-07 NVS)