Miriam Jordan

But her case is not so common. Romero has been receiving treatment for Stage 4 oral cancer that needs continual attention. And she has a son, a doctoral student at Yale University who is himself in the country without legal permission, who was not about to stand idly by.

“I grew up in this country. My mother is the single biggest reason I am at a school like Yale,” her son, Cristian Padilla Romero, said of the public campaign he started to win his mother’s freedom.

“She guided me, worked three jobs to support me,” said Padilla Romero, 24, who was 7 years old when he came to the United States.

His campaign has been directed at fellow students, professors, members of Congress and the public at large. An online petition he began on Tuesday has gathered about 20,000 signatures. A GoFundMe campaign has raised more than $21,000. His mother’s plight appeared in an article in The Yale Daily News and on national immigrant advocacy social media feeds.

Padilla Romero is protected from deportation under the program known as DACA, or Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals, which gives a temporary reprieve to young people who were brought into the country without authorization as children.

Many of them, also known as Dreamers, have used their temporary legal status and skills in political organizing and social media to shine a light on the actions of the immigration authorities, things that earlier might never have been made public.

This fall, students and faculty mobilized at the University of California, when at least a dozen Iranian students were denied permission to enter the United States.

“Cristian’s story is not the only story like this,” said Miriam Feldblum, who was vice president for student affairs at Pomona College when Padilla Romero was an undergraduate at the California school. “Students on campuses across the country are struggling with immigration issues. Their parents are in deportation. They are in limbo.”

Padilla Romero has reached out to Feldblum, who is a founder of the Presidents’ Alliance on Higher Education and Immigration, which advocates on behalf of immigrant students. “This is someone who exemplifies the engaged student scholar on campus,” said Feldblum, whose organization is made up of university presidents and chancellors.

At Yale, Padilla Romero’s classmates have been strategizing with him, calling members of Congress in Connecticut and Georgia and sending queries to Immigration and Customs Enforcement, the agency that is moving to deport his mother, to demand her release.

“When stuff like this comes up you drop everything,” said Joshua Aiken, a doctoral student in history and African American studies, who prepared a script for Yale students to use when telephoning ICE. “People’s families are being torn apart every day by cruel and unethical deportation policies, and so the minute Cristian told me what was happening, it was time to mobilize.”

Alicia Schmidt Camacho, chair and professor of ethnicity, race and migration at Yale, said Padilla Romero, who is her student, had made a decision to be a scholar in Central American studies to address the root cause of the crisis that unauthorized immigrant families are enduring.

“Now he’s using his own struggle to shed light on the devastating impact of deportation on our communities,” she said.

Tania Romero, 48, crossed the border illegally two decades ago and raised four children in Atlanta, juggling jobs as a housekeeper, dishwasher and laundromat attendant, sometimes all at once. Eventually, she got a full-time job in construction.

She apparently was issued an order of removal from ICE in 2008, based on her failure to show up for scheduled hearings in immigration court. But her son obtained documents through a Freedom of Information Act request that appear to show that she had not received any of the three notices advising her to appear in court. The letters had been returned to ICE by the U.S. Postal Service.

Though Romero knew she was in the country illegally, she did not learn she had an outstanding deportation order until she was detained in mid-August of this year, after being pulled over while driving in Gwinnett County, Georgia, Padilla Romero said.

In 2016, Romero received a diagnosis of Stage 4 oral cancer. She went through surgery as well as chemotherapy, which damaged her jaw and caused her to lose several teeth.

“It’s very hard for her to eat in general, and we are really concerned about her health in detention, where she is not receiving any special accommodation,” Padilla Romero said.

While she is not in urgent need of special medication, he said, she requires regular medical attention and is not receiving it.

The health staff at the ICE detention facility in Georgia determined that Romero had a severe vitamin B12 deficiency and recommended hospitalization, Padilla Romero said, but she was only offered remedial injections, and only after her lawyer intervened.

A request to ICE by her lawyer for a stay of deportation on humanitarian grounds because of her fragile health was denied in September.

ICE officials said they could not discuss the case. “Due to privacy restrictions, ICE is unable to comment on Tania Romero’s case,” said Lindsay Williams, a spokeswoman for the agency.

The agency’s general position has been that unauthorized immigrants are not automatically entitled to stay in the country, even in cases of people who are receiving lifesaving medical treatment. President Donald Trump has made it a priority to crack down on illegal immigration and take action against those living unlawfully inside the country.

Padilla Romero’s campaign has started to find a response. Julián Castro, the Democratic presidential candidate, shared the petition on Twitter. And Rep. Lucy McBath, D-Ga., who represents Padilla Romero’s congressional district, is working closely with the family on the case, her office said.

But Padilla Romero learned on Wednesday that ICE had contacted Honduran authorities for travel documents that would enable his mother to be deported by the end of this week.

She has already missed an oncologist appointment, he said. In Honduras, she would not get the care she requires.

“Sending my mother back to Honduras would be a death sentence,” Padilla Romero said. “We’re not going to stop our work until she is released.”

This article originally appeared in

She's Fighting Cancer. Her Son Is Fighting Her Deportation.

It is a common occurrence: an unauthorized immigrant gets pulled over for a traffic violation, ends up in detention and swiftly is removed from the United States. In the case of Tania Romero, a Honduran mother of four who was arrested recently in Georgia, a deportation could happen within days.

Between 250 and 300 migrants marched overnight to a point midway across the Gateway International Bridge between Matamoros, Mexico, and Brownsville, Texas, sitting in the vehicle lanes and blocking traffic in both directions for about 15 hours.

Customs and Border Protection halted traffic across the Gateway bridge and another international crossing nearby about 1:30 a.m., an agency spokesman said, in response to protesters who were not carrying documents for legal entry into the United States.

Traffic resumed before dawn at the second crossing, but the Gateway bridge remained closed in both directions until late afternoon on Thursday, the spokesman said, with all vehicle traffic diverted to other ports of entry.

The episode unfolded amid escalating tension over the Trump administration’s increasingly rigid policies aimed at restricting the entry of migrants into the United States. The Gateway bridge is adjacent to a teeming encampment where about 1,000 migrants, mainly from Central America, have been living in squalid conditions while they await immigration court hearings in the United States.

In recent interviews, families have described children falling ill, families plagued by thugs and a growing sense of despair as U.S. authorities continue to send people back from the border.

“They are absolutely desperate, with no international presence in the camp to organize anything such as food delivery or medical care,” said Jodi Goodwin, an immigration attorney who holds regular workshops to help migrants fill out asylum applications and learn about the legal process.

The migrant protest, which included children, occurred as the Trump administration is moving to contain a record-breaking surge in migrant families, with the biggest numbers crossing into South Texas.

Border authorities took nearly 1 million people into custody in the fiscal year that ended Sept. 30, the highest number since 2007. But the new restrictive measures have brought about a sharp decline, with Customs and Border Protection reporting this week that about 52,000 migrants were taken into custody in September, an 18% decrease from August.

For decades, those who could reasonably argue they were fleeing persecution in their homelands could enter the United States and wait for their hearings in court. Often they stayed with relatives in the interior of the country.

But under a Trump administration program introduced in January, many migrants seeking admission to the United States are now being sent back to Mexico for the duration of their court proceedings. They are allowed to cross the border only for their hearings, often conducted in an expanding network of tent courts.

The migrants’ chances of gaining entry into the United States were further impaired last month when the Supreme Court let stand another new Trump administration policy that requires migrants who traveled through other countries en route to the United States to prove they had been denied asylum along the way before being eligible to apply at the border.

More than 50,000 migrants have been sent back from various southern border entry points, including about 120 a day who are being returned to Matamoros.

Not only has the plaza encampment near the bridge in Matamoros grown more crowded by the day, say volunteers who have worked with the group, but in a town that is notorious for drug and gang violence, some migrants have been victims of kidnapping for extortion and sexual assault.

Thursday’s protest at the bridge was peaceful, witnesses said. By early afternoon about 150 migrants remained, despite reminders by the authorities that the protocols for admission would not be waived. After a visit by immigrant advocates and the mayor of Matamoros, they dispersed in the late afternoon and the lanes reopened to traffic.

The Gateway bridge closure had caused long lines to form at two other international bridges leading into Texas, and border officials said Thursday’s scheduled immigration court hearings in Brownsville were postponed.

Emigdio Manuel García, 89, who owns a restaurant and curios shop in Matamoros about a block from the bridge, expressed exasperation over the disruption caused by the closure. “These people have been here for many months,” he said. “They are now invading the international bridge to protest and they are blocking passage.”

Garcia said the bridge was vital to the economy of both cities. The shutdown, he said, affects “people who are trying to get their kids to school, who are trying to go shopping.”

“Matamoros and Brownsville are one single city, a city joined by a bridge that is now dividing us,” he added.

There have been attempts by migrants to rush two other international bridges in South Texas in recent months. In June and July, authorities at the Hidalgo-Reynosa International Bridge intercepted a handful of migrants trying to run across. Several migrants also attempted to get across the bridge connecting Reynosa, Mexico, and Pharr, Texas.

In November last year, a peaceful march by Central American migrants waiting in Mexico across from California veered out of control as hundreds tried to evade a Mexican police blockade and run toward the border crossing into San Diego.

In response, U.S. authorities shut down the border crossing in both directions and fired tear gas to repel migrants, most of whom had been traveling as part of a large caravan.

Sit-In Protest by Migrants Closes Down Border Bridge

Amid growing tension over deteriorating conditions at the border, hundreds of migrants who had been blocked from entering the United States shut down an international bridge in South Texas on Thursday, disrupting a normally busy connection between the United States and Mexico.

Between 250 and 300 migrants marched overnight to a point midway across the Gateway International Bridge between Matamoros, Mexico, and Brownsville, Texas, sitting in the vehicle lanes and blocking traffic in both directions.

Traffic resumed a few hours later at the second crossing, but the Gateway bridge remained closed in both directions Thursday, the official said, with all vehicle traffic diverted to other ports of entry. There was no estimate of when it might reopen.

The episode comes amid growing tension over the Trump administration’s increasingly rigid policies aimed at restricting the entry of migrants into the United States. The Gateway bridge is adjacent to a teeming encampment where about 1,000 migrants, mainly from Central America, have been living in squalid conditions while they await immigration court hearings in the United States.

The migrant protest, which included children, comes as the Trump administration is moving to contain a record-breaking surge in migrant families, with the biggest numbers crossing into South Texas.

Thursday’s protest at the bridge was peaceful, witnesses said. By early afternoon about 150 migrants remained, despite reminders by the authorities that the protocols for admission would not be waived.

The Gateway bridge closure caused long lines to form at two other international bridges leading into Texas, and border officials said all scheduled immigration court hearings in Brownsville had been postponed.

There have been attempts by migrants to rush two other international bridges in South Texas in recent months. In June and July, authorities at the Hidalgo-Reynosa International Bridge intercepted a handful of migrants trying run across. Several migrants also attempted to get across the bridge connecting Reynosa, Mexico, and Pharr, Texas.

Asylum Protesters Close Bridge on Texas-Mexico Border

Amid growing tension over deteriorating conditions at the border, hundreds of migrants hoping for asylum in the United States spent hours Thursday shutting down an international bridge in South Texas that connects the United States and Mexico.

On Aug. 7, the U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services, without public notice, eliminated a “deferred action” program that had allowed immigrants to avoid deportation while they or their relatives were undergoing lifesaving medical treatment.

The agency, part of the Department of Homeland Security, had sent letters informing those who had asked for a renewal, which the immigrants must make every two years, that it was no longer entertaining such requests. The letters said that the immigrants must leave the country within 33 days or face deportation.

On Monday, the agency said in a statement that while limiting the program was “appropriate,” officials would “complete the caseload that was pending on Aug. 7.”

The statement said that deportation proceedings had not been initiated against anyone who had received the letter. However, it did not say whether it would continue to grant immigrants extensions to stay in the country or whether the program would be continued after current applications are processed.

When asked for clarification, an agency official said the agency “is taking immediate corrective action to reopen previously pending cases for consideration.”

“Whether a very limited version of deferred action will continue forward at USCIS is still under review. More information will be forthcoming,” said the official, who only agreed to speak on background.

Among those who had been affected by the administration’s decision to end the program was Maria Isabel Bueso, 24, who has participated in several medical studies, including a drug trial that resulted in a treatment for her rare disease, which causes dwarfism and other physical deformities.

Without the drug, Bueso and others with the genetic disorder were unlikely to live to adulthood. Her doctor, Paul Harmatz, had said that leaving the United States would lead her to quickly fall ill and die.

On hearing that she had a chance to stay in California, rather than return to Guatemala, where the drug is not available and she cannot receive the required medical care, Bueso said, “This is amazing. This is great news to wake up to.”

After The New York Times featured Bueso in an article last week, she was invited to testify before Congress in the coming days. Indignation at the policy spread on social media, and several Democratic lawmakers, including Rep. Nancy Pelosi, the speaker of the House, called on the Trump administration to reverse the decision.

Bueso’s lawyer, Martin Lawler, said, “It’s unclear whether people will be granted appropriate extensions or whether people like Isabel will always be living on the knife’s edge, worried that the next extension will not be granted when they are in the middle of receiving medical treatment for their serious diseases.”

A longtime advocate for people with rare diseases, Bueso said that she planned to lobby Congress to find long-term relief for patients. “We have to find a permanent solution so that families like mine don’t have to go through this again,” she said.

Faced With Criticism, Trump Administration Reverses Abrupt End to Humanitarian Relief

LOS ANGELES — The Trump administration Monday announced that it would reconsider its decision to force immigrants facing life-threatening health crises to return to their home countries, an abrupt move last month that generated public outrage and was roundly condemned by the medical establishment.

Family breakups have been imposed with even greater frequency in recent months under the Trump administration’s most widely debated immigration policy, ostensibly to protect the welfare of the children, but in many cases because of relatively minor criminal offenses in a parent’s past, such as shoplifting or public intoxication, according to tallies the Justice Department provided to the American Civil Liberties Union, which is challenging the separations.

This month, the acting Homeland Security secretary, Kevin McAleenan, said in testimony before the House Oversight and Reform Committee that separations were “rare” and made only “in the interest of the child.”

“This is carefully governed, it’s overseen by a supervisor when those decisions are made,” McAleenan said, noting that fewer than 1,000 separations of children from their parents had occurred out of about 450,000 members of families encountered at the border since October 2018.

In most cases, government officials have said, border officers who make a decision to remove a child from an accompanying adult do so because there are questions about the child’s welfare, or doubts that the adult is genuinely the child’s parent. In some cases, they said, children are separated even though they are traveling with someone who clearly appears to be an aunt, uncle or sibling. Some children have appeared at the border accompanied by adults who later were determined to be using the child to try to gain entrance to the United States, officials have said.

The new numbers were filed with Judge Dana M. Sabraw of the U.S. District Court in San Diego as part of the court’s continuing supervision of the family separation issue. In its motion Tuesday, the ACLU asked the judge to clarify a set of standards for such separations that would ensure that children are taken from their parents only when there is evidence that the parent is a genuine danger to the child, or is unfit to provide care.

“The administration is still doing family separation under the guise that they are protecting children from their own parents, even though the criminal history they are citing is either wrong or shockingly minor,” said Lee Gelernt, of the ACLU’s Immigrants’ Rights Project. “This is just circumventing the court’s order.”

Children who were separated from their families over the last year spent an average 68 days in shelters, according to the motion filed with the court, though four children have been away from their families for more than 300 days.

More than half of those separated — a total of 481 — were under age 10 at the time of separation, and 185 children were 5 or younger.

Family separations began in large numbers in the spring of 2018 under the Trump administration’s “zero tolerance” border enforcement policy, which called for nearly all adults who entered the country illegally to face criminal prosecution. Any children accompanying them were placed in shelters or foster care. Migrant families often ended up hundreds or thousands of miles apart for weeks or longer.

A limited number of family separations also occurred under the Obama administration, though only in instances when it was clear that the parent endangered the child, former Obama administration officials have said.

The separations were central to the Trump administration’s early efforts to discourage migrant families from trying to enter the United States after traveling over land through Mexico. Arrivals of families decreased while the policy was in effect.

But images of weeping mothers and children at the border provoked an international outcry and outrage across party lines, with all four living former first ladies and Melania Trump expressing horror at the policy. Trump issued an executive order on June 20 effectively rescinding the policy by calling for any parents who are prosecuted for illegally crossing the border to be detained with their children.

Sabraw the same month issued an order to reunify all separated families, and cases of separations dropped precipitously. But they have recently been climbing rapidly, Gelernt said. By March, about 200 migrant children had been taken from parents and other relatives and placed in institutional care since the policy was officially rescinded the previous June. The total number reported to the court Tuesday — 911 separations between June 2018 and June 2019 — suggests that the practice has expanded recently, perhaps in response to a large number of migrant families entering the country in the spring.

In the first nine months of the current fiscal year, 427,881 members of families were encountered at the border, compared with 161,113 during the entire 2018 fiscal year, according to figures compiled by Customs and Border Protection.

The latest separations reported to the court, based on monthly tallies the Justice Department is required to submit to the parties in the litigation before Sabraw, are mainly based on crimes committed by the parent, according to the new documents. But ACLU lawyers argued in their motion that many of the violations are as minor as traffic tickets. In one case, a 6-year-old child was flown to a New York shelter when her mother was hospitalized in California after injuring her leg.

In testimony before Congress this month, the Border Patrol’s chief of law enforcement operations, Brian S. Hastings, said the agency has established that its agents may elect to separate a child from a parent if there is a determination that the parent or legal guardian poses a danger to the child, is otherwise unfit to care for the child, has a criminal history or a communicable disease, or is transferred to a detention setting for prosecution for a crime other than improper entry.

They may also separate a child when border officials cannot confirm that the adult is actually the child’s parent or legal guardian, or if the child’s safety is at risk, Hastings said.

But this leaves broad discretion for Border Patrol agents, something that lawyers challenging the practice in court hope to end with court-imposed standards.

“Right now, the government can separate based on any criminal history, regardless of the severity, and based on subjective criteria,” Gelernt said. “We want them only separating in specific circumstances.”

In the field, Border Patrol agents say they are mindful of the best interests of children, and of their obligation to keep them safe.

“We are not really separating anybody unless there is criminal activity already on the record,” said Jorge Rivera-Navarro, a spokesman for the Border Patrol in El Centro, California, a sector that covers 70 miles in the southeastern corner of the state near Arizona. In one recent case, he said, a member of the MS-13 gang was posing as the father of a little girl. The man was arrested and the girl was sent to a government shelter.

The new motion before the court did not lay out the full details of all 911 cases of separations, in part because the government provided only minimal details of criminal history for each case, the filing said. For many parents, the spreadsheet provided by the Justice Department did not state the nature of the criminal history at all. For many others, it did not specify whether the criminal history was a conviction or merely a charge.

“In most cases, the spreadsheet fails to indicate the age of the charge or conviction,” the court filing says. In over 75% of the cases, the spreadsheet does not even specify whether the crime was a felony or misdemeanor.”

In the 218-page filing, organizations that work with immigrants at the border and lawyers that represent them, working with the ACLU, documented a number of separations they considered questionable. The organizations included Catholic Charities, the National Immigration Justice Center, the Michigan Immigrant Rights Center and Las Americas Immigrant Advocacy Center.

In one case, a father who is identified in the court filing only by the initials ERR had sought medical attention for his daughter when she began to cough and became feverish in detention.

One day, while she was sleeping in her father’s arms, the baby wet her diaper and he did not change it because he had wanted her to keep sleeping. “A female guard took his daughter out of E.R.R.’s arms, criticized him for not changing the diaper, and called him a bad father,” the filing says. “The guard then separated E.R.R. and his infant. The government’s own documents show that E.R.R. has no other criminal history.”

The government’s report to the ACLU lists dozens of parents separated from a child as a result of traffic violations, drunken driving offenses, drug possession, and fraud or forgery offenses, according to Gelernt.

A 2-year-old child was separated from his father based on “public intoxication arrests and a D.U.I.” An 8-month-old boy was removed from his father for a “fictitious or fraudulent statement or representation arrest.” One parent was separated from a child because of an assault that took place 20 years ago, a misdemeanor offense for which he had served three days in jail.

One parent was separated from his daughter because of “malicious destruction of property, value $5,” for which he had received a six-day jail sentence with six months of probation. The child was handed over to her mother after nearly four months in custody.

An 11-year-old girl was separated from her father because of a conviction for disorderly conduct and an illegal re-entry charge. One parent was separated because of a record of shoplifting and driving without a license, according to the government spreadsheet. Another parent was separated as a result of a 2009 conviction for “resisting or obstructing an officer,” for which he received “17 days time served,” according to the filing.

There were also allegations of gang membership that were unsubstantiated, the filing said. A father accused of being a gang member was separated for six months from his children, ages 9 and 11, the filing said, until his attorney submitted a background check that showed another person in El Salvador with a similar name and date of birth who had a criminal record.

This article originally appeared in <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2019/07/30/us/migrant-family-separations.html" id="c87b755d-6f9c-31f8-a98b-5b2a7d50af8f">The New York Times</a>.

More Than 900 Migrant Children Have Been Separated From Their Families Over Past Year

LOS ANGELES — In the year since President Donald Trump officially ended family separations at the southern border, immigration authorities have removed more than 900 migrant children from their families, sometimes for reasons as minor as a parent not changing a baby’s diaper or having a traffic citation for driving without a license, according to new documents filed Tuesday in federal court.

A limited number of family separations also occurred under the Obama administration, though only in instances when it was clear that the parent endangered the child, officials from the Obama administration have said.

They may also separate a child from a person purporting to be a parent or legal guardian in certain circumstances, such as when border officials cannot confirm that the adult is actually the parent or legal guardian, or if the child’s safety is at risk, he said.

The new motion before the court did not lay out the full details of all 911 cases of separations, in part because the government provided only minimal details of criminal history for each case, the filing said. For numerous parents, the spreadsheet provided by the Justice Department did not state the nature of the criminal history at all. For many others, it did not specify whether the criminal history was a conviction or merely a charge.

“In most cases, the spreadsheet fails to indicate the age of the charge or conviction,” the court filing says. In over 75% of the cases, the spreadsheet does not even specify whether the crime was a felony or misdemeanor,” according to the court filing.

In the 218-page document, organizations that work with immigrants at the border and lawyers that represent them, working with the ACLU, documented a number of separations they considered questionable. The organizations included Catholic Charities, the National Immigration Justice Center, the Michigan Immigrant Rights Center and Las Americas Immigrant Advocacy Center.

In one case, a father who is identified in the court filing only by the initials ERR had sought medical attention for his daughter when she began to cough and became feverish in detention. He was separated from her because of a wet diaper, according to the filing.

One day, while sleeping in her father’s arms, the baby wet her diaper and he did not change it because he had wanted to allow her to keep sleeping. “A female guard took his daughter out of E.R.R.’s arms, criticized him for not changing the diaper, and called him a bad father,” the filing says. “The guard then separated E.R.R. and his infant. The government’s own documents show that E.R.R. has no other criminal history.”

A 2-year-old child was separated from his father based on “public intoxication arrests and a D.U.I.” An 8-month-old boy was removed from his father for “fictitious or fraudulent statement or representation arrest.” One parent was separated from a child because of an assault that took place 20 years ago, a misdemeanor offense for which he had served three days in jail.

One parent was separated from his daughter due to “malicious destruction of property, value $5,” for which the father had received a six-day jail sentence with six months of probation. The child was handed over to her mother after nearly four months in custody.

LOS ANGELES — In the year since President Donald Trump officially ended migrant family separations at the southern border, immigration authorities have removed more than 900 migrant children from their families, sometimes for reasons as minor as a parent not changing a baby’s diaper or having a traffic citation for driving without a license, according to new documents filed Tuesday in federal court.

In most cases, government officials have said, border officers who make a decision to remove a child from an accompanying adult do so because there are questions about the child’s welfare, or doubts that the adult is genuinely the child’s parent. In some cases, they said, children are separated even though they are traveling with someone who clearly appears to be an aunt, uncle or sibling.

President Donald Trump had touted the raids — called Operation Border Resolve — as a show of force amid an influx of Central American parents and children across the southern border. After postponing the raids in June, Trump said ahead of time that they would take place last week.

Two current Department of Homeland Security officials and one former department official also confirmed to The Times that an enforcement operation would take place around mid-July.

But the publicity may have prompted many of those who had been targeted — 2,105 people in more than a dozen cities who had received final deportation orders but had not reported to Immigration and Customs Enforcement officers — to temporarily leave their homes, or to move altogether to evade arrest.

Advance notice of the large-scale operation also gave immigrant advocates time to counsel families about their rights, which include not opening the door or answering questions. On social media, community groups shared detailed information about sightings of ICE agents.

In an interview Monday, Matthew Albence, acting director of ICE, which is responsible for arresting, detaining and deporting unauthorized immigrants who are in the United States, acknowledged that the number of apprehensions was low.

“I don’t know of any other population where people are telling them how to avoid arrest as a result of illegal activity,” he said. “It certainly makes it harder for us to effectuate these orders issued.”

“You didn’t hear ICE talking about it before the operation was taking place,” he added.

The arrests of the nearly three dozen migrants — 17 of whom were members of families that crossed the border together and 18 of whom were collateral apprehensions of unauthorized immigrants — were among more than 900 the immigration authorities have made since mid-May, Albence said.

From May 13 through July 11, ICE arrested 899 adults who had final deportation orders, in an undertaking called Operation Cross Check. The majority had criminal convictions, Albence said.

A backlog of nearly 1 million immigration cases means that it can take years for a case to wind its way through the courts. Those who were targeted in last week’s raids had been placed on an accelerated docket, with a goal of resolving their cases within a year. The majority had been ordered removed from the country by an immigration judge.

“What we found is that the vast majority did not even show up for their first hearing,” Albence said. “Above and beyond, we sent them letters giving them the opportunity to turn themselves in and arrange for an orderly removal process,” including time to organize their affairs and schedule flights on commercial carriers.

As part of a multipronged approach to rein in illegal immigration, Albence said that the government had also been cracking down on companies suspected of hiring unauthorized immigrants. He said 3,282 businesses across the country were told last week to submit payroll documents for review.

“Part of our goal is to reduce economic opportunities,” Albence said. “We cannot have individuals who come into the country illegally and then go find work illegally.”

The audits of companies and payroll forms, often called “silent raids,” hit restaurants, food processing, high-tech manufacturing, agriculture and other industries that employ thousands of workers, according to lawyers representing some of the companies. Employers typically lose a substantial number of workers as a result of the audits, which can also lead to fines and criminal charges against the businesses.

The Trump administration has significantly increased company inspections, often called I-9 audits for the form that workers are required to fill out affirming that they are authorized to work in the United States. There were 5,981 such audits in fiscal 2018 compared with 1,360 the previous year.

“The Trump administration has been more aggressive than any administration with I-9 investigations,” said Kimberley Robidoux, a business immigration lawyer in San Diego who specializes in compliance and who has several clients who are affected.

Still, as it grapples with a record number of migrant families at the southern border, the Trump administration has deported fewer people, on average each year, than the Obama administration.

In fiscal 2018, the Trump administration deported 256,086 immigrants, an increase of 13% over the previous year. In contrast, President Barack Obama removed 409,849 people in 2012, an all-time high, and 235,413 in fiscal 2015.

In the first two quarters of the 2019 fiscal year, the Trump administration deported 130,432 people, up from 123,253 during the same period the previous year.

Obama directed immigration authorities to target for arrest and removal convicted criminals, migrants who had crossed the border recently and those who had illegally entered the country multiple times. Trump has said that anyone agents encounter who is living in the country illegally is fair game for detention and removal.

Indeed, on Monday the Trump administration said it would accelerate the deportation of unauthorized immigrants who cannot prove they have been in the United States for more than two years, enabling federal agents to arrest and deport people without a hearing before a judge.

The expansion of an expedited removals program, which is expected to be challenged in court, could result in people being deported without a court hearing and could affect their ability to seek asylum in the United States.

Just last week, the administration announced it would deny protections to immigrants who failed to apply for asylum in at least one country they passed through on their way north, in its latest attempt to deter Central Americans from heading to the United States. That policy was challenged in court by a coalition of immigrant advocates one day after it was announced.

The Border Patrol has arrested 363,300 migrant family members from Honduras, El Salvador and Guatemala at the southern border in fiscal 2019. Many of them are seeking asylum, having fled violence in their home countries.

Because children cannot be detained for more than 20 days under established standards, the Border Patrol has been releasing families, who usually turn themselves in to authorities after crossing the border, to await their immigration court dates.

“This highlights the challenges when we are unable to detain individuals at the border and are forced to release them into the country,” Albence said.

Last week, Trump deemed the operation targeting families that began around July 14 as “very successful.”

The government’s plans changed at the last minute because of news reports that had tipped off immigrants about what to expect, according to several current and former Department of Homeland Security officials. Instead of a large sweep, the authorities opted for a limited and more diffuse scale of apprehensions.

The families who were rounded up have been placed in family detention centers, where it is difficult for them to gain access to legal help. But immigration lawyers said that they could still take steps to halt their immediate deportation, for example by filing an appeal or a motion to reopen their cases. Some of the families, they said, might not have been aware they missed a court hearing if they did not receive a notice of if they had moved.

This article originally appeared in <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2019/07/23/us/ice-raids-apprehensions.html" id="25ac42ba-319e-30a6-a0e6-337acd9b122d">The New York Times</a>.

More than 2,000 migrants who were in the United States illegally were targeted in widely publicized raids that unfolded across the country last week. But figures the government provided to The New York Times on Monday show that just 35 people were detained in the operation.

More Than 2,000 Migrants Were Targeted in Raids. 35 Were Arrested.

But for eight months, Tamas, 38, has been locked in a correctional facility six hours’ drive from his family as he fights a protracted legal battle to remain in the United States. During that time, he has not once seen his wife, 11-year-old son and 8-year-old daughter, who suffers from congenital heart disease.

Tamas has fallen prey to the crackdown on immigration that is at the top of the president’s national agenda — and letters of support from high-profile businesspeople and his former bosses have so far not helped him win leniency.

Tamas, a green-card holder, was arrested by immigration authorities after he applied for U.S. citizenship in 2016 and a background check revealed that he had been convicted in absentia of committing insurance fraud in Romania.

His lawyer is appealing an immigration judge’s decision to deport him and asking Immigration and Customs Enforcement to release Tamas while the case winds through the court. But the agency has said he must remain detained because of his crime.

“Zoltan wasn’t caught crossing the border,” said Mario Urizar, Tamas’ lawyer, adding that his client was not a flight risk. “He was in the country legally, paying taxes and has no criminal record in the United States. Why would you keep him detained? They should use their discretionary power to release him.”

Tamas is being held at Wakulla Correctional Institution in Crawfordville, Florida, near Tallahassee. His wife and children, who are U.S. citizens, remain in West Palm Beach, struggling to survive without the breadwinner of the family.

Tamas first began working at a Trump property in the 2006-07 winter season. Then 25, he was among a group of guest workers from Romania and other countries at the Mar-a-Lago resort on an H-2B visa, which the Trump property has relied on for several years to import immigrant workers.

He waited on guests at the beach club and parked their cars. That year, his girlfriend at the time, Alina Rogozan, came to the United States from Romania on a tourist visa. The couple married in Las Vegas and honeymooned in Hawaii.

They returned to Romania, where Tamas helped run his father-in-law’s bakery and store. They had a son, David, in 2008. In 2011, Tamas and his family were awarded permanent residence cards after he won the diversity visa lottery, which enables about 50,000 people each year from around the world to obtain permanent legal residence in the United States by sheer luck of the draw.

Tamas moved to West Palm Beach and bought a two-bedroom townhouse for his family, which was about to grow. His former boss at Mar-a-Lago hired him right away, according to his wife, who remained in Romania to be with her family while she awaited the birth of their second child.

Their daughter, Rania, was born in Romania with a defective heart. At 5 days old, the baby was airlifted to Germany for two emergency surgeries.

Rogozan and the children later joined Tamas in Florida, hopeful of obtaining top-notch medical care for their daughter.

In 2013, Tamas got a full-time job with benefits and health insurance at the golf club in Jupiter, which Trump had purchased the previous year. He took classes to become a security officer and to obtain a license to handle firearms, and was hired to keep watch over the expansive grounds. He later took a second job in the transportation division.

“All the time when Trump’s kids were coming to the airport, he was going to pick them up,” said Rogozan, 44, reciting the names of the children whose cellphone numbers her husband still keeps in his phone.

Though Trump had his own chauffeur, she remembers that her husband came home one night with a $100 tip that the president had given him.

“He worked crazy hours. We knew when he was leaving, but never knew when he was coming back. But he was happy to have work and health insurance for his daughter,” Rogozan said.

Between 2014 and 2015, at the age of 3, Rania underwent five surgeries, which cost tens of thousands of dollars. The family paid the out-of-pocket portions with money raised through a GoFundMe campaign started by Egret Lake Elementary School in West Palm Beach, along with donations from friends.

While Trump was campaigning for president in 2016, Rogozan said that her husband was promoted to deputy head of security at the Jupiter club. He picked up campaign staff members and dignitaries at the airport. Each time, he had to submit identification for clearance by the Secret Service, she said.

Her husband liked the Trump family, she said, saying often that, “They’re not what you see on TV.”

But in October 2016, Tamas decided to leave his jobs because he did not get along with a new manager, his wife said. One of his last paychecks, reviewed by The New York Times, shows that he earned an hourly wage of $8.05 for driving and $16.50 for his security position.

Officials at the Trump Organization, which owns the Jupiter resort, did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

Tamas became a chauffeur at Five Star Transportation, a company that serves a number of coastal enclaves in South Florida.

In 2016, as legal residents of the United States for nearly five years, Tamas and his family were eligible to become naturalized Americans. They filled out the forms, got fingerprinted and completed biometric exams.

Rogozan was notified within a few months that she had been scheduled for an interview with an immigration officer. But Tamas was not. He called and sent emails, only to hear that his background check had not been completed. “He was very confused, asking, ‘Why is this happening?” recalled his wife.

Rogozan and her children became Americans in April 2017.

In June of last year, Tamas received a letter from Immigration and Customs Enforcement requesting that he report to the agency office to discuss his “inadmissibility” to the United States at the time that his family had traveled to Romania on vacation and returned in 2013.

When Tamas and his wife arrived at the office, he was told that he would be detained, without further explanation. An officer ordered Tamas to hand his wife his wedding band, belt and phone — and escorted him away.

ICE officials, when asked about the case, said they could not discuss the immigration court’s ruling, but said that those who have been ordered by a judge to leave the country automatically forfeit their legal residence status, and that ICE is legally required to detain them.

Later, Rogozan said, they would learn that Tamas had been convicted in absentia of fraud in Romania, a crime that appears to have occurred, she said, when a friend used his name to make multiple phony claims to an auto insurer. No extradition claim was ever lodged by the Romanian government, his lawyer said.

A few months ago, a judge ordered Tamas removed from the country. His lawyer has filed a motion to reopen the case with the Board of Immigration Appeals, which had already upheld the immigration court’s deportation order, and filed a petition for review before a federal appeals court. Both appeals are pending.

Tamas’ family has argued that he does not represent any criminal threat to the United States. Scott M. Rocklage, a venture capitalist in the biotech industry, said he has known Tamas for years and has offered to vouch for him as a character witness. “He is quite the industrious person,” he said. “He works hard on everything he does and has the ability to do multiple things at once, from driving and security for Trump to working as a handyman on the side, all in support of his family.”

Still, it’s not clear whether character witnesses will help. The Trump administration has broadened the scope of offenses that can lead to removal from the country, and the president has emphasized criminal behavior of various kinds as justification for deportations. The Obama administration, immigration lawyers say, used much broader discretion in deciding what kinds of cases warranted removals.

Rogozan said she has had to borrow about $25,000 from friends to pay medical and household bills. Rania, who is now in second grade, has become increasingly anxious since her father was detained, and has taken to rubbing her ears until they bleed, according to her mother.

They would follow him to Romania, she said, but without access to medical care in the United States, their daughter would likely not survive, Rogozan said. “It would be signing her death sentence to return to Romania. That is why we are fighting.”

This article originally appeared in <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2019/03/29/us/trump-driver-chauffeur-ice-romania.html" id="1dae9410-982b-3c82-a8a9-731d8a0ce2a4">The New York Times</a>.

Former Trump Family Driver Has Been in ICE Custody for 8 Months

When Donald Trump’s children and campaign staff arrived in South Florida during the 2016 presidential campaign, they were often greeted at the airport by Zoltan Tamas in a black Cadillac Escalade. As a senior security guard at Trump National Golf Club in the town of Jupiter, Tamas was licensed to carry a gun. He bought a home, paid taxes and never ran afoul of the law since immigrating legally to the United States from Romania in 2011.

The businesses coached their clients to deceive U.S. immigration officials and pay indigent rates at hospitals to deliver their babies, even though many of the clients were wealthy, investigators said. Some Chinese couples were charged as much as $100,000 for a birth-tourism package that included housing, nannies and shopping excursions to Gucci.

A tip sheet for customers, titled “Strategies to Maximize the Chance of Entry,” recommended stating on a visa application that pregnant mothers intended to stay at the “5-star” hotel, “Trump International Waikiki Beach,” to convince immigration officials that they were well-to-do vacationers, not mothers traveling with the intention of giving birth on American soil, investigators said.

Grand jury indictments unsealed Thursday in U.S. District Court in Los Angeles brought the total number of people charged in the schemes to 19, including both business operators and clients. But some of those targeted in the indictments are not presently in the United States, investigators said.

The appeal of bearing an American child, long associated with immigrants who enter the country illegally, has spurred a birth-tourism industry that now caters to people from all over the world.

The industry is growing at a galloping pace, especially among Chinese nationals experiencing uncertainty over their country’s long-term economic prospects, investigators said. The number of businesses in operation is undoubtedly much larger than the three agencies targeted in the latest indictments in the Los Angeles area, said Mark Zito, assistant special agent in charge of Immigration and Customs Enforcement’s Homeland Security Investigations in Los Angeles.

“We are talking about three takedowns in LA, when there are probably 300,” Zito said. “We have seen more businesses pop up. It is probably going stronger now than it was in 2015.”

While the agencies charged in the investigation cater mainly to Chinese parents, Zito said investigators have also found evidence of Russians heading to the Northeast and Nigerians traveling to Texas for the sole purpose of having American children. The Middle East is also a growing generator of birth tourism, investigators said.

“We are trying to quell this, but it is increasing. Other nations will start taking advantage of this,” Zito said.

The phenomenon of anchor babies has fueled criticism from advocates of tougher immigration laws who are concerned that foreign adults are using their children to secure permanent residency in the United States and from there, access to public benefits.

The indictments include an array of charges, including visa fraud, wire fraud and identity theft, against owners of the birth-tourism agencies that are accused of enabling thousands of Chinese women to come explicitly to give birth to American children.

Three people who operated multimillion-dollar birth-tourism businesses in Southern California were arrested Thursday in the biggest federal criminal probe ever to target the thriving industry, in which pregnant women come to the United States to give birth so their children will become American citizens.

Miriam Jordan

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