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U.S.-born kids were in foster care as parents fought deportation,A Honduran mother feared for her U.S.-born children after Florida authoritiesseized them when she and her husband were arrested due to a deportation order.



 
 
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  #1  
Old July 27th 07, 08:58 AM posted to alt.support.child-protective-services,alt.support.foster-parents,alt.dads-rights.unmoderated,alt.parenting.spanking
fx
external usenet poster
 
Posts: 2,848
Default U.S.-born kids were in foster care as parents fought deportation,A Honduran mother feared for her U.S.-born children after Florida authoritiesseized them when she and her husband were arrested due to a deportation order.

U.S.-born kids were in foster care as parents fought deportation
A Honduran mother feared for her U.S.-born children after Florida
authorities seized them when she and her husband were arrested due to a
deportation order
By ALFONSO CHARDY


http://www.miamiherald.com/460/story/183770.html

Blanca Banegas, her husband and two young sons came to Miami in December
to visit friends. But Miami police thought the van with Texas plates
that was carrying the family looked suspicious. One officer kept probing
as if Banegas were not the mother of her two boys.

Then police ran her name through a federal list. Hers popped up as an
undocumented immigrant who had been ordered deported in 1999. Police
called immigration agents. Banegas' Miami vacation -- and her life in
America -- began to unravel.

The Honduran couple from Texas ended up in immigration detention
awaiting deportation -- their American children handed over to Florida
foster care. And Banegas knew nothing of their whereabouts.

The episode is the first documented South Florida case of children
seized by the state upon immigration officers' arrest of the parents.
There are no official state or national figures, though immigration
advocates say there have been other cases in South Florida.

Separating immigrant parents from their U.S.-born children has become
controversial as immigration authorities step up raids of undocumented
immigrants who have been ordered deported.

For two months while in detention Banegas, 27, had no idea where her
sons Joshua, 7, and Jasuat, then 5, were living. Her common-law husband
Eddy Tome, 39, knew the children had been turned over to the state, but
didn't know how to reach Banegas.

''I felt hysterical and lost,'' said Banegas, who fled Honduras in 1999
after Hurricane Mitch and would have qualified for Temporary Protected
Status to stay and work in the United States had she applied for TPS.
Banegas never did.

When foreign parents and children are held for deportation, the family
is kept together in detention -- or a parent is detained while the
other, typically the mother, is released under supervision to care for
the kids.

But when the children are U.S. citizens, procedures seem less clear-cut.
Immigration does not detain American children at facilities.

The case also raises questions about the role of the Miami Police
Department, whose chief, John Timoney, an Irish immigrant, has
repeatedly insisted his officers won't ask about a person's immigration
status -- unless they suspect a crime.

`I PAID MY DEBT'

Banegas, who worked in a restaurant, has no criminal record. Tome,
however, has a felony record in Texas. Even though the construction
worker served his time, he remained deportable.

Tome said that after pleading guilty to selling crack cocaine to an
undercover agent in 1994, he spent 2 ½ years in jail -- but later
rebuilt his life.

''What I did was a reflection of inexperience, the excesses of youth,''
he said by telephone. ``After I paid my debt to society, I devoted
myself to the children.''

In a statement prepared by her attorneys in March, Banegas said, ``We
had a decent, simple life.''

Police initially suspected the van in which Banegas, her family and nine
others were traveling was being used for migrant smuggling, a case
record indicates.

Delrish Moss, a Miami police spokesman, said the officers' actions did
not contradict Timoney's immigration stance because they were
investigating what they suspected was a possible crime.

''We do not proactively go out and ask people about their immigration
status,'' said Moss. ``We are not the immigration police.''

The jitney in which the family was riding had arrived near its Little
Havana destination when it came upon a car that police had stopped at
Southwest Eighth Street and I-95.

An officer approached the van and started asking questions when officers
saw the driver unloading Banegas' luggage as the family prepared to get
to their friends' home nearby at 3 a.m. on Dec. 15. Within hours,
Banegas and her husband were in immigration custody. She thought her
husband would keep the children after she was transported to detention.

''They told me to say goodbye to my husband and kids,'' she recalled.

`NO JUSTIFICATION'

Cheryl Little, executive director of Miami-based Florida Immigrant
Advocacy Center, which helped represent Banegas, said the case is one of
several in Florida in recent months. ''Immigration officials have every
right to deport persons without legal status,'' said Little. ``However,
there is no justification for treating persons like Blanca so harshly
and failing for so long to let her know what had happened to her children.''

Barbara Gonzalez, spokeswoman for U.S. Immigration and Customs
Enforcement in Miami, said ICE intended to turn the children over to
Tome until officers discovered a few hours after the couple had been
stopped that he had a criminal background. ICE officers decided to
contact the Department of Children & Families because Banegas had
already been transported to a Broward detention center.

''It's unfortunate parents place U.S.-born children in these difficult
situations by breaking immigration law,'' Gonzalez said. ``However, ICE
officials are obligated under the law to remove those who have been
ordered deported.''

Officials at DCF would not talk about the Banegas case because of
confidentiality laws, and DCF spokesman Al Zimmerman said his agency
does not have figures on how many U.S.-born children of deportable
immigrants are turned over to his agency.

More than three million American children are living in families in
which at least one parent is undocumented, according to the Pew Hispanic
Center. American Fraternity, a Swee****er-based immigrant rights group,
has asked the Supreme Court to prohibit deportation of undocumented
parents with U.S.-born children.

BOYS CRIED

During the police stop, Banegas said one of the officers began
questioning the boys, and they began to cry.

Joshua told his mother the officer said, ``You don't look like your
mother and father.''

She showed the children's birth certificates and Social Security cards
to police, but when they asked her for her papers, she had none. Police
called immigration officers.

Banegas was taken to the Broward Transitional Center in Pompano Beach,
and a few hours later her husband was transported to the Krome detention
center in West Miami-Dade. He was deported in January.

She didn't see her children again until Valentine's Day. By then, she
had missed Christmas with her family, been sent from the Broward
facility to one in Texas and then returned to South Florida.

When the social worker finally brought the children to visit her, Joshua
and Jasuat were living with a foster mother they called Rosie.

''When I saw them, we all started crying,'' Banegas recalled of the
meeting. ``They didn't know my husband was deported to Honduras. They
didn't know where I went either. My eldest son asked why I and his
father had abandoned him.''

When Banegas explained that she had no papers to stay in the United
States, the children quickly offered to give her theirs.

'My younger son . . . said, `Yes, Mommy, why can't you have ours if you
need them?' ''

TOGETHER

Now, Banegas is facing the bittersweet reality of having her family
together again in a country where she no longer wants to live.

Banegas was reunited with her children just before she boarded the plane
home in Miami on March 28. Her husband was waiting for them in Honduras.
The family lives in a small apartment near the capital, Tegucigalpa.
Banegas said the boys have had a rough time adjusting.

''The oldest got seriously ill one time,'' she said. 'He doesn't want to
eat much and gets very sad. He tells me, `Mommy, I want to go back up
there.' But I don't have the means to send them.''




CURRENTLY CHILD PROTECTIVE SERVICES VIOLATES MORE CIVIL RIGHTS ON A
DAILY BASIS THEN ALL OTHER AGENCIES COMBINED INCLUDING THE NSA / CIA
WIRETAPPING PROGRAM....

CPS Does not protect children...
It is sickening how many children are subject to abuse, neglect and even
killed at the hands of Child Protective Services.

every parent should read this .pdf from
connecticut dcf watch...

http://www.connecticutdcfwatch.com/8x11.pdf

http://www.connecticutdcfwatch.com

Number of Cases per 100,000 children in the US
These numbers come from The National Center on
Child Abuse and Neglect in Washington. (NCCAN)
Recent numbers have increased significantly for CPS

*Perpetrators of Maltreatment*

Physical Abuse CPS 160, Parents 59
Sexual Abuse CPS 112, Parents 13
Neglect CPS 410, Parents 241
Medical Neglect CPS 14 Parents 12
Fatalities CPS 6.4, Parents 1.5

CHILD PROTECTIVE SERVICES, HAPPILY DESTROYING HUNDREDS OF INNOCENT
FAMILIES YEARLY NATIONWIDE AND COMING TO YOU'RE HOME SOON...


BE SURE TO FIND OUT WHERE YOUR CANDIDATES STANDS ON THE ISSUE OF
REFORMING OR ABOLISHING CHILD PROTECTIVE SERVICES ("MAKE YOUR CANDIDATES
TAKE A STAND ON THIS ISSUE.") THEN REMEMBER TO VOTE ACCORDINGLY IF THEY
ARE "FAMILY UNFRIENDLY" IN THE NEXT ELECTION...
  #2  
Old July 27th 07, 09:20 PM posted to alt.support.child-protective-services,alt.support.foster-parents,alt.dads-rights.unmoderated,alt.parenting.spanking
0:-]
external usenet poster
 
Posts: 805
Default U.S.-born kids were in foster care as parents fought deportation, A Honduran mother feared for her U.S.-born children after Florida authorities seized them when she and her husband were arrested due to a deportation order.


fx, do you support the author's statement and extend him the courtesy
of a no bias claim, when he says, of an undocumented alien, she had
not committed a crime?

If that is true, then by obvious logic, it's not longer illegal to
enter this county ... rim shot Illegally.


On Fri, 27 Jul 2007 00:58:06 -0700, fx wrote:

U.S.-born kids were in foster care as parents fought deportation
A Honduran mother feared for her U.S.-born children after Florida
authorities seized them when she and her husband were arrested due to a
deportation order
By ALFONSO CHARDY


http://www.miamiherald.com/460/story/183770.html

Blanca Banegas, her husband and two young sons came to Miami in December
to visit friends. But Miami police thought the van with Texas plates
that was carrying the family looked suspicious. One officer kept probing
as if Banegas were not the mother of her two boys.

Then police ran her name through a federal list. Hers popped up as an
undocumented immigrant who had been ordered deported in 1999. Police
called immigration agents. Banegas' Miami vacation -- and her life in
America -- began to unravel.

The Honduran couple from Texas ended up in immigration detention
awaiting deportation -- their American children handed over to Florida
foster care. And Banegas knew nothing of their whereabouts.

The episode is the first documented South Florida case of children
seized by the state upon immigration officers' arrest of the parents.
There are no official state or national figures, though immigration
advocates say there have been other cases in South Florida.

Separating immigrant parents from their U.S.-born children has become
controversial as immigration authorities step up raids of undocumented
immigrants who have been ordered deported.

For two months while in detention Banegas, 27, had no idea where her
sons Joshua, 7, and Jasuat, then 5, were living. Her common-law husband
Eddy Tome, 39, knew the children had been turned over to the state, but
didn't know how to reach Banegas.

''I felt hysterical and lost,'' said Banegas, who fled Honduras in 1999
after Hurricane Mitch and would have qualified for Temporary Protected
Status to stay and work in the United States had she applied for TPS.
Banegas never did.

When foreign parents and children are held for deportation, the family
is kept together in detention -- or a parent is detained while the
other, typically the mother, is released under supervision to care for
the kids.

But when the children are U.S. citizens, procedures seem less clear-cut.
Immigration does not detain American children at facilities.

The case also raises questions about the role of the Miami Police
Department, whose chief, John Timoney, an Irish immigrant, has
repeatedly insisted his officers won't ask about a person's immigration
status -- unless they suspect a crime.

`I PAID MY DEBT'

Banegas, who worked in a restaurant, has no criminal record. Tome,
however, has a felony record in Texas. Even though the construction
worker served his time, he remained deportable.

Tome said that after pleading guilty to selling crack cocaine to an
undercover agent in 1994, he spent 2 ½ years in jail -- but later
rebuilt his life.

''What I did was a reflection of inexperience, the excesses of youth,''
he said by telephone. ``After I paid my debt to society, I devoted
myself to the children.''

In a statement prepared by her attorneys in March, Banegas said, ``We
had a decent, simple life.''

Police initially suspected the van in which Banegas, her family and nine
others were traveling was being used for migrant smuggling, a case
record indicates.

Delrish Moss, a Miami police spokesman, said the officers' actions did
not contradict Timoney's immigration stance because they were
investigating what they suspected was a possible crime.

''We do not proactively go out and ask people about their immigration
status,'' said Moss. ``We are not the immigration police.''

The jitney in which the family was riding had arrived near its Little
Havana destination when it came upon a car that police had stopped at
Southwest Eighth Street and I-95.

An officer approached the van and started asking questions when officers
saw the driver unloading Banegas' luggage as the family prepared to get
to their friends' home nearby at 3 a.m. on Dec. 15. Within hours,
Banegas and her husband were in immigration custody. She thought her
husband would keep the children after she was transported to detention.

''They told me to say goodbye to my husband and kids,'' she recalled.

`NO JUSTIFICATION'

Cheryl Little, executive director of Miami-based Florida Immigrant
Advocacy Center, which helped represent Banegas, said the case is one of
several in Florida in recent months. ''Immigration officials have every
right to deport persons without legal status,'' said Little. ``However,
there is no justification for treating persons like Blanca so harshly
and failing for so long to let her know what had happened to her children.''

Barbara Gonzalez, spokeswoman for U.S. Immigration and Customs
Enforcement in Miami, said ICE intended to turn the children over to
Tome until officers discovered a few hours after the couple had been
stopped that he had a criminal background. ICE officers decided to
contact the Department of Children & Families because Banegas had
already been transported to a Broward detention center.

''It's unfortunate parents place U.S.-born children in these difficult
situations by breaking immigration law,'' Gonzalez said. ``However, ICE
officials are obligated under the law to remove those who have been
ordered deported.''

Officials at DCF would not talk about the Banegas case because of
confidentiality laws, and DCF spokesman Al Zimmerman said his agency
does not have figures on how many U.S.-born children of deportable
immigrants are turned over to his agency.

More than three million American children are living in families in
which at least one parent is undocumented, according to the Pew Hispanic
Center. American Fraternity, a Swee****er-based immigrant rights group,
has asked the Supreme Court to prohibit deportation of undocumented
parents with U.S.-born children.

BOYS CRIED

During the police stop, Banegas said one of the officers began
questioning the boys, and they began to cry.

Joshua told his mother the officer said, ``You don't look like your
mother and father.''

She showed the children's birth certificates and Social Security cards
to police, but when they asked her for her papers, she had none. Police
called immigration officers.

Banegas was taken to the Broward Transitional Center in Pompano Beach,
and a few hours later her husband was transported to the Krome detention
center in West Miami-Dade. He was deported in January.

She didn't see her children again until Valentine's Day. By then, she
had missed Christmas with her family, been sent from the Broward
facility to one in Texas and then returned to South Florida.

When the social worker finally brought the children to visit her, Joshua
and Jasuat were living with a foster mother they called Rosie.

''When I saw them, we all started crying,'' Banegas recalled of the
meeting. ``They didn't know my husband was deported to Honduras. They
didn't know where I went either. My eldest son asked why I and his
father had abandoned him.''

When Banegas explained that she had no papers to stay in the United
States, the children quickly offered to give her theirs.

'My younger son . . . said, `Yes, Mommy, why can't you have ours if you
need them?' ''

TOGETHER

Now, Banegas is facing the bittersweet reality of having her family
together again in a country where she no longer wants to live.

Banegas was reunited with her children just before she boarded the plane
home in Miami on March 28. Her husband was waiting for them in Honduras.
The family lives in a small apartment near the capital, Tegucigalpa.
Banegas said the boys have had a rough time adjusting.

''The oldest got seriously ill one time,'' she said. 'He doesn't want to
eat much and gets very sad. He tells me, `Mommy, I want to go back up
there.' But I don't have the means to send them.''




CURRENTLY CHILD PROTECTIVE SERVICES VIOLATES MORE CIVIL RIGHTS ON A
DAILY BASIS THEN ALL OTHER AGENCIES COMBINED INCLUDING THE NSA / CIA
WIRETAPPING PROGRAM....

CPS Does not protect children...
It is sickening how many children are subject to abuse, neglect and even
killed at the hands of Child Protective Services.

every parent should read this .pdf from
connecticut dcf watch...

http://www.connecticutdcfwatch.com/8x11.pdf

http://www.connecticutdcfwatch.com

Number of Cases per 100,000 children in the US
These numbers come from The National Center on
Child Abuse and Neglect in Washington. (NCCAN)
Recent numbers have increased significantly for CPS

*Perpetrators of Maltreatment*

Physical Abuse CPS 160, Parents 59
Sexual Abuse CPS 112, Parents 13
Neglect CPS 410, Parents 241
Medical Neglect CPS 14 Parents 12
Fatalities CPS 6.4, Parents 1.5

CHILD PROTECTIVE SERVICES, HAPPILY DESTROYING HUNDREDS OF INNOCENT
FAMILIES YEARLY NATIONWIDE AND COMING TO YOU'RE HOME SOON...


BE SURE TO FIND OUT WHERE YOUR CANDIDATES STANDS ON THE ISSUE OF
REFORMING OR ABOLISHING CHILD PROTECTIVE SERVICES ("MAKE YOUR CANDIDATES
TAKE A STAND ON THIS ISSUE.") THEN REMEMBER TO VOTE ACCORDINGLY IF THEY
ARE "FAMILY UNFRIENDLY" IN THE NEXT ELECTION...


 




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