The Daily - The ‘Ineligible’ Families

Episode Date: July 27, 2018

As it raced to meet a deadline for reunifying parents and children separated at the border, the Trump administration deemed hundreds of parents “ineligible.” What does it mean to be ineligible to be reunited with your own child? Guest: Caitlin Dickerson, who covers immigration for The New York Times. For more information on today’s episode, visit nytimes.com/thedaily.

From The New York Times, I'm Michael Barbaro. This is The Daily. Today, as it raced to meet its deadline for reunifying parents and children separated at the border, the Trump administration deemed hundreds of parents ineligible. What does it mean to be ineligible for reunification with your own child? It's Friday, July 27th. Hello? Hi, Nazario.

Yes? Hello, I'm Caitlin Dickerson. I'm a journalist in the United States, from the New York Times. Uh-huh. I wanted to talk a little bit with you about your situation with your daughter. Yes. So Nazario Jacinto Carrillo is from rural Guatemala, and his family farms potatoes.

We live in Guadalajara. He comes from an indigenous village there, so he speaks Spanish, but it's actually his second language, though he can't read or write. Caitlin Dickerson covers immigration for The Times. And in May,

he decided to leave Guatemala with his five-year-old daughter. Her name's Filomena. They left behind his wife and a two year old son who would presumably come and join them later. But the goal for Nazario and Filomena was to seek asylum in the United States. We don't know the details of their case, but we know they live in an area that falls right along the main route for trafficking both people and drugs into the U.S. And so a lot of people flee there and seek asylum because the area is really infested with cartels.

¿Cuándo viniste a los Estados Unidos, señor? So they arrive in May, but their timing really couldn't be worse because it's at the height of the execution of this policy that the United States government has created to separate parents from their children. And it was introduced without any real planning as to how we might at some point bring the families back together. So pretty quickly, Filomena is taken from Nazario, and she's shipped off to New York. Originally, he doesn't even know where she is, much less when he might be able to get her back or why she's been taken away. He wasn't expecting this.

No one coming to the border during that time period was. And so he starts to panic like any parent would. He's sitting in an immigration detention center along the border trying to get answers about where Filomena might be, when he can get her back, and he's learning nothing. Until finally, a border agent comes to him and offers what he thinks is the first sign of hope. This agent offers him a choice. He says, you can remain in the United States and continue to fight your asylum claim. If you do that, we can't give you any information about your daughter. We don't know what's going on there. But if you revoke the claim and you agree to go back to Guatemala,

we can make sure that she's on a plane back to your hometown and you'll have her back within two weeks. back within two weeks. So, Nazario thinks about it and then he decides to go for it. So he decides to revoke his asylum claim and he signs documentation agreeing to go back to

Guatemala without his daughter and wait for her there. Because he believes he will be reunited with her by signing this piece of paper. Exactly. Signing his own in a sense deportation papers. Right. And did he become reunited with her by signing this piece of paper. Exactly. Signing his own, in a sense, deportation papers. Right. And did he become reunited with her? He's still not reunified.

And why not? He doesn't know. We know that the United States government has asked for basically an exception in this ongoing court case that forced family reunification here domestically that applies to every single parent and child who's been separated by the federal government and who still remains in federal custody. So the first job that government lawyers had was to make an accounting of every single person in that situation. They came up with a number that's right around 2,500.

And then they had to seek out ways to reunite those families. The judge required that any kids who were under five years old had to be returned to their parents by July 10th, and any kid that was between the ages of five and 17 had to be returned by Thursday, the 26th of July. So today? Yes. So the government begins to do this work

and very quickly discovers that some people have criminal records that are serious enough to preclude them from reunification, and they ask for an exception in those cases. But then they also begin to discover, wait, wait, we actually don't know where some of these parents are. Some of them have been released into the United States, but we didn't keep in touch. We don't know where they are.

A lot of them have been deported abroad. And so they've asked the judge again for an exception for those parents because we don't know where they are. Are they all being called ineligible? They're all being called ineligible. So this is what the government means when they say that people are ineligible for reunification? Because I thought it meant that parents had done something wrong that somehow meant that they weren't fit to be reunited with their children. Well, that might be what the government wants you to believe because that's the group of people who we hear about most often when it comes to the ineligible parents. But in reality,

there are almost a thousand of them, and it's not a monolithic group. It's really a designation that government lawyers came up with to try to limit the number of people who they had to reunify under this deadline to try to make it easier on them, because it was a huge challenge. And in the case of deportations, like Nasario, the government effectively made them ineligible by telling them that being deported would reunify them with their children. Exactly. So we've heard a range of experiences, and certainly many people say that they were outright lied to, and that's why they agreed to be deported. But there are lots and lots of others who just didn't really understand what they were signing or what they were agreeing to. They were maybe looking at documents in English or in Spanish, and they didn't know either of those two languages. And we know that hundreds

of parents were presented with a form that the federal judge in this case later said was misleading them because it basically presented them with two options. It said, I agree to be deported with my child or I agree to be deported without my child. In any case, you're going to be deported. In any case, you're going to be deported, A, is the message. And B, it's misleading because these are parents who for weeks and in some cases months have received no information as to why their kids were taken and when they're going to get them back. And so this symbolizes to them the first suggestion

that they even could get their kids back. And so parents basically said, I would have signed anything as long as the words with my child were on that form. But was that a deliberate tactic on the part of the U.S. government to make people ineligible for reunification by deporting them? It's hard for us to say what was deliberate and what wasn't because we're operating with one side of the story. We're operating based on the families and what they tell us. What I can tell you is that it's very typical both in dealing with the Border Patrol and also in dealing with ICE, who takes custody of people once they stay in the United States for a little longer.

It's very typical for people working for those agencies to basically encourage people to give up their claims. Their job is enforcement. Their job is to limit the number of people who come into the United States. And so this is not the first time that I've heard stories of people being pressured into agreeing to their own deportation. It's actually a very common narrative. But I think the stakes are obviously a lot higher here when we're talking about agreeing to leave. And also, by the way, we might keep your kid and we might not have any idea when we're going to return them. So back in Asario, is it possible that the person who asked him to sign that document, deporting himself and not being eligible for reunification, that border

patrol person may not have even known what the implications of this were. I think at that point, nobody knew because until we had these specific deadlines, no one really knew when reunification might happen. People who were responsible for enforcing this policy didn't have the information that they needed to do it. And so that's why we have a temporary stay on deportations now because the judge is saying, whoa, whoa, whoa, people are agreeing to stuff they don't exactly know what they're agreeing to. Even when they're agreeing to something, they're not exactly getting it. So no more deportations of anybody, much less without their children until people are clearly aware of their rights. Who is this judge? And is there just one judge who's been dealing with this whole situation? So yes, Judge Dana Sabra in San Diego

in federal district court there has been managing all the family reunification lawsuits since he was the first to rule nationwide that each of the families needed to be reunited. And he's recognized that this is an enormous task that he's asked of the federal government and he commends them for the work that they've done. But he also is really constantly telling them to stop complaining and telling them

to stop coming up with excuses and saying, you know, you did this. I know this is a lot of work, but you have no choice. You have to do it. Don't make excuses. And does this judge consider this broad category of ineligible parents who can't be reunited with their children for any number of reasons the government's come up with? Does he consider that to be an excuse? He's clearly skeptical of that excuse in some cases. So I think this judge is deeply disturbed about the more than 400 parents who have been deported without their kids. He has agreed to give the government an extension on those cases, but he's definitely not letting them off of his radar. He's committed to making sure that those parents get their kids back.

So, Caitlin, that's everyone who's ineligible to be reunified. We're talking to you on Thursday because this is that second deadline that you mentioned. What's happening with everyone else who is still eligible for reunification? So there is an incredible scramble happening today. Here's what's happening outside Cayuga Center. All of a sudden, there's about 11 to 12 bands outside of the facility. There are a lot of children to be reunited. Will Washington meet the deadline?

In Baltimore, seven-year-old Andy couldn't hold back his tears after seeing his mother out alley for the first time in nearly a month. Today's the deadline a California judge gave the government to get every last one of those families back together, but it does not look like it's going to happen. And it's hard to sort of overstate the number of parties involved, the level of last-minute planning and changing of plans that's happening. Thousands of people, government employees, but also advocates, were helping to move parents and move kids to get them into the same place and to get them back together, which is actually a lot more complicated than you might imagine. So here in New York, where hundreds of kids were housed, we're hearing that,

you know, they're being rounded up largely in the middle of the night, put onto buses and sent across the country. A lot of them are going to the border where the government has set up staging facilities to try to, you know, siphon down where these reunifications are taking place. But it's all happening so quickly that we've heard stories of kids who were sent to the wrong facilities. So they arrive and realize their parents aren't there. Or there were a seven and a nine-year-old set of siblings from New York who were sent to the Southwest this week to be reunited with their mother.

But after they arrived, their lawyer discovered that it seemed she actually had already been deported. So they didn't end up getting to see her. And then you have these incredible backups at the staging facilities. So we've heard stories of people who've had to wait hours. Some people have had to wait days, even more than a week. They arrive. They think they're getting in line to get their kid back. But again, these are all new processes. The government has never done anything like this before. So they don't have accommodations for housing, for people to sleep. There's limited food. They can't take a shower. They can't use their cell phone. And they're waiting and waiting

and waiting and hoping to get their child back as soon as they can. This is all starting to sound like a plan to separate parents from their children, but not to bring them back together. to sound like a plan to separate parents from their children, but not to bring them back together. That's right. We have not seen any evidence of a plan for how parents and children might have been brought back together. And there's really no evidence that they would have been returned to one another if it weren't for this judge who ordered it. We'll be right back. So if it's been this hard to get these eligible families reunified, families who are still inside the United States,

I cannot but wonder how hard it's going to be to reunify people like Nasario who have been deported. I can't either. I mean, from everything we've heard, there really hasn't been any effort yet to even track these parents down. And the government has said that once they do, they're not going to allow their parents back into the United States to retrieve their kids. So that means they'll have to be vetted from abroad. Then travel documents will have to be obtained for the children, most of whom arrived here, as you can imagine, without passports. So it's really hard to tell when they might be able to see their kids again, which is, of course, crushing for parents who are sitting in small towns with no information. And what do we know about where Nazario is in this process? So we know that he has a team of lawyers who are working desperately to try to help him.

He's got lawyers in New York where his daughter is housed, lawyers along the border and in California. And we know where Filomena is. We know where he is, obviously. But there's still no information. I mean, I just got off the phone with him. He has no idea when he might see her again. What does he say to you? It's really hard to talk to him on the phone.

I mean, we've spent quite a bit of time, but he has a hard time answering questions or describing things. You know, I've asked him to tell me about Philomena, tell me about the town where he lives or his life. Really, all he does is ask me when he's going to get his daughter back. And he kind of repeats the question. He asks you as if you have the answer. As if I know.

Even after I tell him that, you know, I'm sorry, I don't have any more information, then he'll say. I don't have any more information, then he'll say, Okay, but more or less, how many days? Can you tell me how many days it might be? It's like he's stuck. It's like he can't comprehend what's happening. You know, he's asked me, what do they want from her? She was five years old when she was detained. She had a birthday, so she's six now.

But he says she doesn't have anything for them. She's a kid. He feels like his daughter's been kidnapped. I mean, he just doesn't get it. And she doesn't either. So he talks pretty regularly with a caseworker who's been assigned to watch over her here in New York. But Filomena won't

get on the phone with her parents. It's too upsetting for her. I think she's tried a couple of times and cried the whole time. And like a lot of kids her age, they actually believe that their parents intentionally left them.

So she's feeling abandoned. So she's feeling abandoned. And Nazario told me that, you know, he's tried, that her mother has tried. That even her two-year-old brother cries for her and asks for her. But they really haven't even talked to her on the phone. So she just understands on some level that her father made the decision to leave. But of course she can't understand

that he had done it with the promise that it would mean that they would be reunited. She can't understand any of that. All she knows is that her dad agreed to leave. And you said that Nazario is from a very rural area in Guatemala, that he doesn't speak English. So I'm trying to imagine that man, now from a distance,

trying to navigate the American government bureaucracy of immigration. Even his lawyer is having a really hard time explaining to him these bureaucratic systems that are sort of governing his life and now his daughter's life. He just doesn't get it. He doesn't have any familiarity with it. He had a very simple goal, come to the United States with his daughter, seek safety and protection, and eventually see his wife and son again. And he's been caught up in this policy of the federal government that, as we've said, is so complicated that involves not just the government, but the courts and advocates and deadlines and paperwork, and none of it makes sense to him. But it makes sense, understanding all that,

that when you call Caitlin, he thinks that you're someone who knows more than he does, because on some level, you probably do. On some level, I might. I have a direct line to a lot of people that he probably would like to talk to, but the reality is that even those people don't know when he's going to see his daughter again. Caitlin, thank you very much.

Thank you. On Thursday night, the Trump administration said it was on track to complete the reunification of all eligible families by midnight. But it said that more than 700 children of ineligible parents remain in custody. Here's what else you need to know today. The Times reports that as part of his investigation into possible obstruction of justice, Special Counsel Robert Mueller is scrutinizing President Trump's tweets and negative public statements about his Attorney General Jeff Sessions and the former director of the FBI, James Comey. Mueller is examining whether the communications were attempts by the president

to block the investigation by intimidating witnesses and pressuring senior law enforcement officials to tamp down the inquiry. And... Do any of you have any questions? Manu. Mr. Speaker, is it appropriate for your colleagues to try to impeach Rod Rosenstein? And it's also, is it appropriate for them to seek documents

that are directly pertinent to an ongoing investigation, the Mueller investigation? Do I support impeachment of Rod Rosenstein? No, I do not. I do not for a number of reasons. On Thursday, House Speaker Paul Ryan said he opposed a resolution introduced by 11 House Republicans a day earlier to impeach Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein, who is overseeing Mueller's investigation. First, I don't think we should be cavalier with this process or with this term. Number one. Number two, I don't think we should be cavalier with this process or with this term. Number one. Number two, I don't think that this rises to the level of high crimes and misdemeanors,

a really high standard. Number three, we, since I got involved, have been getting a lot of compliance from DOJ on the document request. The lawmakers behind the measure say they will continue to push for impeachment until Rosenstein gives them more documents related to the Mueller investigation. But without Ryan's support, the resolution is unlikely to advance in the House. The Daily is produced by Theo Balcom,

Lindsay Garrison, Rachel Quester, Annie Brown, Andy Mills, Ike Srees-Conaracha, Claire Tennesketter, Paige Cowett, Michael Simon-Johnson, and Jessica Chung, with editing help from Larissa Anderson. Lisa Tobin is our executive producer. Samantha Hennig is our editorial director. Our technical manager is Brad Fisher. Our engineer is Chris Wood. And our theme music is by Jim Brunberg and Ben Lansford of Wonderly. Special thanks to Sam Dolnick, Michaela Bouchard, Leman Gistu, Stella Tan,

Mitchell Furman, Ilana Panich-Linsman, Manny Fernandez, and Annie Correal. That's it for The Daily. I'm Michael Barbaro. See you on Monday.