Border lines

• Author: Lorelei Laird
• Pages: 64-65

64 || ABA JOURNAL AUGUST 2018

Your ABA

PHOTOS COURTESY OF ABA MEDIA RELATIONS, U.S. CUSTOMS AND BORDER PROTECTION

It’s not just the crying that con-

cerned ABA President Hilarie Bass

when she met with mothers detained

at South Texas’ Port Isabel Detention

Center. But there was crying.

“It was clear they would give up

anything to get their children back.

And so to the extent that separation

of the mother from her children was

done in a punitive way, to prevent

them from asserting legal asylum

claims, I’d suggest it may well be

e ective,” she says. “And that’s of

tremendous concern to me and

should be of concern to any

American lawyer.”

Bass traveled to the Rio Grande

Valley at the end of June to see how

American lawyers can help families

separated by federal immigration

authorities and to meet with sta

from ProBAR, the ABA’s South Texas

Pro Bono Asylum Representation

Project. ProBAR connects volunteer

attorneys with adult and child clients

seeking asylum.

Attorneys representing asylum-

seekers from Central America

frequently work with traumatized

clients. But since the federal govern-

ment began separating families after

arresting parents for unlawful entry,

ProBAR director Kimi Jackson says

the trauma has gotten far worse.

“We’ve served these two popula-

tions for years, but never have we

seen anything like what’s going on

now with these family separations,”

Jackson says. “The children who are

separated from their parents obvi-

ously are very traumatized. And

[the parents are] in acute distress

because they don’t know where their

children are.”

In April, Attorney General Je

Sessions announced he was working

with the Department of Homeland

Security to institute a zero tolerance

policy and prosecute every person

crossing the southern border illegally,

even asylum-seekers. In May, he

stated that children would be

removed from their families and

held in separate detention sites.

As images of immigrants in

chain-link holding cells and audio

of children weeping for their parents

found their way into the media, there

was a swell of public outrage. Bass

issued statements in May and June

on behalf of the ABA strongly oppos-

ing the policy.

“Separating children from their

parents not only violates due process,

it is antithetical to the very human

values on which this country was

founded and sets a terrible example

for the rest of the world,” Bass said in

her May statement.

Responding to public pressure,

President Donald Trump issued an

executive order June 20 announcing

a policy change “to maintain family

unity, including by detaining alien

families together where appropriate

and consistent with law and available

resources.” But a multitude of ques-

tions, logistical and legal, linger.

SEEKIN G ASYLUM

According to Jackson, recent

federal policy changes have made

every step of the asylum-seeking

process more di cult. That starts

at the border, where, under U.S.

and international law, foreign

nationals are supposed to be able

to present themselves to a U.S.

Customs and Border Protection

patrol agent to request asylum. But

in a June interview, Jackson said the

CBP had been turning them back.

“They started stationing an o cer

BORDER LINES

ABA works to meet immigrants’ increased need

for legal assistance and oppose family separations

By Lorelei Laird

Hilarie Bass outside a federal courthouse

in McAllen, Texas, whe re she saw 75 people

plead guilty en mas se to the misdemeanor

crime of unlawful e ntry.