ICE Is Arresting Sponsors of Detained Children Who Are Undocumented Immigrants

With the thousands of children currently in immigration detention, one of the most helpful things that can be provided for these kids is having them stay with a known sponsor. There’s just too many kids currently in these detention centers — an estimated 12,800, according to The New York Times — for these facilities so it’s important that sponsors come forward. However, now that commitment to child safety isn’t a secure process.

CNN is reporting that people that have come forward to sponsor these kids are being monitored by the U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) to see whether or not they are legally in the U.S. or not. CNN is also reporting that dozens of people have already been arrest as undocumented immigrants who’ve attempted to sponsor detained children. Furthermore, out of those dozens that came forward as undocumented immigrants, an estimated 70 percent of those people were arrested just because they came forward, meaning they had no previous violations whatsoever.

“We’ve arrested 41 individuals thus far that we’ve identified pursuant to that (memorandum),” ICE senior official Matthew Albence testified on Tuesday, CNN reports. “Close to 80 percent of the individuals that are either sponsors or household members of sponsors are here in the country illegally, and a large chunk of those are criminal aliens. So we are continuing to pursue those individuals.”

Those that have been arrested could have been close family members of the kids. One thing startling aspect to this saga is that many times when the kids are taken by the sponsor, they sometimes are not heard from again. That was why earlier this year people were outraged that so many of these kids had “disappeared.” What wasn’t discussed at the time was that it’s actually a good thing, at times, that these things are no longer under the watchful eye of ICE or other government agencies.  At least now we are seeing one of those negative affects to being in the system for all parties involved.

If you needed further proof of how much the Trump Administration is focusing, nonsensically, on children immigration, look no further than the revelation that the government has been taking millions away from cancer and HIV research and placing it in the hands of ICE.