Rights Group: President’s Action Criminalizes Those Trying To Join Family

By Laurel Morales
January 08, 2015
Fermina
© 2013 Platon/The People's Portfolio for Human Rights Watch
Fermina Lopez Cash, a 47-year-old woman from Guatemala, sits in her home with a photo of her 13-year-old son, Omar, who died in July 2010 in the Arizona desert trying to cross the U.S.-Mexico border to join her and his older siblings in Phoenix.

A report released Thursday suggests President Barack Obama’s executive action on immigration doesn’t go far enough to shield parents of United States citizens from deportation.

The president’s immigration initiative is designed to help parents of U.S. citizens who have been in the country for more than five years without a criminal background.

Human Rights Watch’s Clara Long says the president did not address border removal policies that deport parents of U.S. citizens.

“Some of these parents can be technically felons because they’ve received an illegal re-entry conviction, which is a felony,” Long said. “These people just can’t be deterred according to what they’ve told us by criminal prosecutions for entry and re-entry. It’s a matter of the heart. They need to be with their families and they see no other option.”

Human Rights Watch found 101,900 people who were apprehended at the border between 2011 and 2012 had U.S. citizen children. Human Rights Watch got its data from the US Customs and Border Protection through a Freedom of Information Act request.