Ahead of May 23, 2018 hearing entitled” TVPRA and Exploited Loopholes Affecting Unaccompanied Alien Children, Amnesty International USA submitted a statement for the hearing record.
Since 2015 Amnesty International has documented the deepening refugee crisis from the Northern Triangle region of Central America, its push factors and how Mexico and the United States have responded to the regional crisis.
In May 2018, Amnesty International staff conducted a three-week research mission along the U.S. southwest border (California, Arizona, New Mexico, Texas, and some adjacent border areas of Mexico). The preliminary findings submits that Department of Homeland Security (DHS) is increasingly forcibly separating children from their parents or guardians when these family units request asylum.
Amnesty International USA urges the Senate Judiciary Committee to press the administration to ensure the following:
- Those families that have been separated, must be reunified as quickly as possible.
- Halt the forced separation of children from their parents or guardians. Family units must be kept together in accordance with international standards on family unity.
- Halt the prolonged detention of parents and guardians who arrived in the U.S. with children.