Trump scraps rules protecting immigrant children: Public comment ends today
A federal lawsuit challenging the rule change heads to oral arguments on Friday morning.
This article is part of an All Rise News series on the Federal Register’s notice and comment process, which informs subscribers about an effective form of civic engagement.
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The Trump administration’s rule change that has left unaccompanied immigrant children separated from their families is heading toward a reckoning.
On the Federal Register, the public comment period ends tonight at midnight to sound off on a rule allowing the Office of Refugee Resettlement to disqualify potential sponsors because of their immigration status and share that information with law enforcement.
In the words of immigration groups suing the Trump administration on behalf of five unaccompanied minors: “Collectively, these policy changes have resulted in children across the country being separated from their loving families, while the government denies their release, unnecessarily prolonging their detention.”
The public can comment on the rule here, before the opportunity to do so closes tonight at 11:59 p.m. Eastern Time.
There are 285 comments to date. Here is one anonymous submission.
Trump’s legacy of family separation
During his first term, Trump’s so-called “zero tolerance” policy of family separation was wildly unpopular, and Trump 2.0’s recent policy change has the same effect as the original, according to immigration groups.
For example, the anonymous plaintiffs in a pending federal lawsuit are children who say that they are being separated from family members who cannot provide documents now required by Trump’s Office of Refugee Resettlement (ORR).
“Young children such as Eduardo M. and his 7-year old brother have been deprived of the care and support of their mother for months,” their attorney David Hinojosa wrote in a motion for a preliminary injunction. “They ‘cry frequently at the program’ and their mother explains that she is ‘desperate because I only want to be with my sons but I already provided all the documents I have.’”
Angelica S., the 17-year-old lead plaintiff, was pregnant and gave birth in ORR custody, where her detention was prolonged by the agency’s new identification and information-sharing policies.
According to her attorneys, “Angelica S. and her baby now have no prospects for release.”
The Trump administration justifies the rule changes on “vetting” grounds, disclosing that one of Angelica S.’s adult caregivers was arrested for the sexual abuse of a child, but the immigration rights groups note that isn’t the type of government scrutiny that’s being challenged.
“That ORR previously identified safety concerns and addressed those concerns through home studies proves only that ORR’s existing vetting systems worked,” the children’s attorneys wrote. “Despite this vetting, three plaintiffs now lack any sponsor and may remain in ORR custody until they turn 18—including 15-year-old Liam W. seeking release to his mother.”
“An enforcement arm”
A program of the Department of Health and Human Service’s Administration for Children and Families, the Office of Refugee Resettlement has shifted in its focus from welfare to deportation.
That’s according to the recent ProPublica and Texas Tribune joint investigation calling the agency “an enforcement arm” of the Trump administration.
Scott Shuchart, a former official with Homeland Security and U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement during Trump’s first term, told ProPublica that the second term administration is “trying to use that protective arrangement as a bludgeon to hurt the kids and the adults who are willing to step forward to take care of them.”
The pending federal lawsuit, which names Trump’s Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. as a co-defendant, argues that the rule changes are “arbitrary and capricious” in violation of the Administration Procedure Act.
As we previously noted, the Federal Register’s notice and comment process is designed to prevent reckless regulations by forcing officials to address significant public concerns.
One commenter described how his experiences as the son of a Holocaust survivor left him “appalled” by the rule change.
“I am alive because a kind family offered refuge to my mother from 1942 to 1945,” commenter Rudie Lion wrote. “The family accepted the risk that a traitor could reveal my mother's hiding place, but it also knew that my country's authorities would NEVER disclose any information about the family that could hurt them or my mother. And yes, that would mean deportation to the concentration camps. I am appalled, afraid, and angry that 80 years after the end of WWII, the United States is actively putting these unthinkable measures in place.”
In a phone interview, Lion told All Rise News he started advocating for unaccompanied minors after the scandal broke during Trump’s first term of children being “kept in cages.”
“Last year, I got involved personally by volunteering at a refugee organization in whatever way I could — whatever needs there were — and then I was asked if I wanted to lead a team that was sponsoring in an immigrant family that was arriving in the country,” he said.
Lion learned about the notice and comment campaign through the Young Center for Immigrant Children’s Rights.
A judge will hold a hearing on Friday morning to determine whether to issue a preliminary injunction blocking the interim final rule, so-called because it is already in effect.
I wish I had read this yesterday. I gave it to a friend in Mormon Women for Ethical government. They have historically been strongly opposed to family separation.
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