SAN DIEGO (Border Report) — The Jewish Family Service and the ACLU Foundation in San Diego have filed a complaint with the U.S. Department of Homeland Security asking its inspector general to investigate why a 2-day-old baby, born in the United States, was expelled from the country by Border Patrol agents on June 30.
The baby’s mother, father and 9-year-old brother had entered the country illegally seeking asylum two days earlier.
Attorneys are asking that the family be granted parole and be allowed to return to the United States to await the asylum process.
The family is originally from Honduras and claims they left their home country to get away from gangs who extorted them, made repeated death threats, beat the 9-year-old and took over their house.
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After venturing north of the border through an unguarded area of the border in San Diego County, the family sought asylum, but the Border Patrol placed the family into the Migrant Protection Protocols program, also known as “Remain in Mexico.”
The father and the 9-year-old were almost immediately sent back to Mexico, but the mother who was nine months pregnant was taken to a hospital in Chula Vista, Calif., where she gave birth to a boy.
Two days later she too was sent back to Mexico along with her baby.
“No interview was provided even though it is required by Migrant Protection Protocols,” said Jewish Family Service Attorney Luis Gonzalez.
The agency works and helps migrant families in San Diego and Imperial counties. Gonzalez is the supervising immigration attorney with JFS.
He believes the Border Patrol did not follow proper procedures before expelling the mother and the newborn U.S. Citizen.
“We’re also dealing with a U.S. citizen sent to Mexico, the baby and mother have not received any medical attention, when they were released they were told they needed to follow up to days later,” Gonzalez said.
(Salvador Rivera/Border Report)
“This family should have been granted release into the U.S. to await their asylum proceedings, as the Department of Homeland Security has done with more than 23,500 individuals – all in family units – over the past one and a half years across the San Diego border region,” Gonzalez said.
Recently, a federal appeals court and a district judge blocked a Trump policy to deny asylum to anyone who passes through another country on the way to the U.S. border with Mexico without first seeking protection there.
U.S. Customs and Border Protection, which oversees the Border Patrol, has said it does not comment on pending litigation. Their expulsion authority is under legal challenges. CBP maintains its agents can make exceptions for humanitarian or other reasons.
