Posted on 06/08/2018 2:21:14 PM PDT by Oldeconomybuyer
Three young Guatemalan women went on trial this week at the red-rock federal courthouse in Alpine, Texas. It's about 70 miles from the spot in the border town of Presidio where they waded across the Rio Grande three weeks ago, with their eight- and nine-year-old sons in tow.
One of the women, Emilia Figueroa, testified during the trial that she believed if she brought her boy with her, the two of them would be released to live in the United States until their immigration court date.
But, to their horror, the opposite occurred. Agents booked the Guatemalan mothers for unlawful entry and took their children away to a shelter in New York City.
Chris Carlin, the public defender handling their cases, said in an interview that he thinks this is all part of the Trump administration's mean-spirited plan to deter more unauthorized immigrants from coming.
"The only thing that makes sense to me is to make it far more onerous to reconnect the adult with the child," Carlin said. "Why else would you do this? Why would you take a child from the desert of west Texas and fly them to Manhattan?"
In courthouses up and down the U.S.-Mexico border, immigrant parents who crossed illegally with their children are facing a harsh reality. They will no longer be allowed to stay together, as a family. The parents are detained. And the children are transported to shelters, sometimes hundreds of miles away.
Figueroa, Fidelina Pascual-Leiva, and Maria Santiago-Sanchez the three Guatemalan mothers desperate to be reunited with their sons are part of the biggest surge of undocumented migrants since Trump took office.
Immigration agents arrested more than 50,000 in May more than three times the number a year ago. At the same time, the government has vowed to prosecute every immigrant who crosses illegally, even if they ask for asylum. It's called "zero tolerance."
The result has been an overflow of detainees so many that the government is putting adults in federal prison beds, and looking at military facilities to house their children. In Alpine, the federal court docket has jumped 40 percent.
Attorney General Jeff Sessions blames the parents.
"We don't want to do this at all. If people don't want to be separated from their children, they shouldn't bring them with them," Sessions said on the Hugh Hewitt radio show earlier this week. "We've got to get this message out: if you come illegally and if you bring children, you'll still be prosecuted."
None of the Guatemalan mothers had communicated with their sons, and they didn't learn where their children had been transported until Wednesday, according to Carlin. Each mother has one son.
Aware of the widespread panic that family separation has caused, Immigration and Customs Enforcement says it has set up hotlines and assigned officers to help detained parents find their children who are somewhere in U.S. government custody.
In court on Wednesday, the despondent, scared faces of the three defendants indicated they had clearly not received Sessions' message.
They were dressed in tangerine-orange jumpsuits, shackled at the waist and ankles, and so short in stature that when they sat down their rubber jail slippers barely touched the floor.
Photography was not allowed in the courtroom. A leaked photo from a mass court appearance, the way most immigration defendants are sentenced, was published last week by The Intercept and circulated widely online:
This trio of Mayan women asked for a trial before a judge. They wanted to explain the facts of their cases.
Figueroa, an illiterate, 24-year-old housewife, testified that she fled her village when local thugs extorted her and threatened to harm her and her son. She says she borrowed $4,000 from family friends to make her way to Alabama to stay with an in-law.
"This is the place where there is no violence, as there is in my country," she testified softly, in Spanish.
Her attorney tried again and again to point out that these defendants are mothers and deserve leniency. But each time, the prosecutor objected, saying it was irrelevant in a criminal case.
"In these cases," Carlin said, "in the three cases that you saw today, there is no mention in the Border Patrol narrative, that those women had a child with them when they entered the United States. Nothing."
At the end of the three-hour trial, U.S. Magistrate Judge David Fannin was visibly moved by the mothers' predicament.
"As painful as this may be," he said, "I find you guilty of the offense of illegal entry into the United States." He then declared their punishment was time-served for the three weeks they had been detained.
Under the old rules, at this point, parents would be reunited with their children, released, and told to appear in immigration court.
But Trump has vowed to do away with what critics derisively call "catch and release."
So, under the new rules, these three women will be moved from a pre-trial cell to an immigration cell in the same lock-up. There they'll wait until their asylum claims are decided.
"So all that will actually happen is they'll be, the color of their uniform will change from orange to green, and then they'll be in immigration custody," Carlin said.
The judge asked the three diminutive women if they had anything to say. They shuffled to a microphone ankle chains clanking, with U.S. marshals towering over them.
Figueroa wept as she told the judge: "Thank you for listening, thank you for your kindness."
Pascual-Leiva said: "I apologize for entering your country unlawfully."
Then Santiago-Sanchez said, through tears, "When they took away our children we cried and cried. We were so sad."
Carlin is not sure when or if they'll be reunited.
Things can get tough for unfit mothers.
Yup. They need to go home. Enough is enough. We are not responsible to take in every human being into America because your country is a shithole. Fix your own countries !
For $4000 they could have moved to the next town down the road.
GTFO.
How'd I do?
The woman had friends who had $4000, but they weren’t being targeted by extortionists, and they didn’t need to flee themselves?
Of course, there is no way to verify this story, but it’s completely illogical.
Where did she get the idea she could just waltz right in without following the law, anyway? Who old her that?
Her Parish Priest who didn't know there had been an administration change and that immigration laws are now enforced?
Pretty good. But you can add in holding children in cages like animals and show a photograph of the kids in a cage. (Of course, do not mention that the pic was taken during the Obama regime.)
Deport them all.
If they do stay, they will be angry and hateful because they must follow rules.
Deport them now, we have enough haters in this country.
“One of the women, Emilia Figueroa, testified during the trial that she believed if she brought her boy with her, the two of them would be released to live in the United States until their immigration court date.”
I believe the crux of the problem is the “testimony” is actually fraudulent. Why?
They mothers have been informed by the illegal immigration networks that the greatest likelihood is that they would be able to not show up for their court date and remain unaccounted for in the U.S. illegally.
That is in fact one of the common means used over the years to get in and remain illegally.
Once here, the disfunctional system, “sanctuaries”, eployers that don’t give a dam how citizens wages are depressed, Democrats, Marxists and Progressives will all collectively conspire to make possible what the three women are actually up to - getting here and remaining here illegally, on purpose.
Is LEGAL immigration from “Latin America” “insufficient”?? No, it is the opposite of “insufficient”. It is far greater than any other region of the world.
But, to their horror, the opposite occurred"
So says the foreign national who disrespected our nations laws and sovereignty by being here unlawfully.
I once thought that as a citizen, if I played by the rules (laws) and paid my taxes (exorbitant), that I could live in this country where the rule of law applied equally to everyone...including all foreigners here as well as those in positions of political (all levels) and national law enforcement (FBI, CIA, NSA, etc) power.
To my horror, the opposite occurred.
Is jail violent? and Can illegals vote in jail?
Boo Hoo
If they had pooled their money, they probably could have bought the next town down the road.
Hey, If she doesn’t want to be separated from her child awaiting trail, ask her if she will voluntarily leave the country back to Mexico and promise never to return.
That would solve a lot. If she doesn’t, then let her and her child be held separately for their own protection.
As they say. Assume makes an ASS out of U and ME She assumed her and her child would be released in the US and that she could then just slip off the radar with her child. Sorry lady, you should have tried to come to the country the legal way.
For $4000 they could have bought a homestead at home and made a living
...Her attorney tried again and again to point out that these defendants are mothers and deserve leniency. But each time, the prosecutor objected, saying it was irrelevant in a criminal case...
Welcome to the real world of the US law and the justice system.
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