Trump administration separates newborns from some migrant mothers in detention

[babylonsister]

Trump administration separates newborns from some migrant mothers in detention
Joan McCarter
Daily Kos Staff
Tuesday May 28, 2019 · 2:35 PM EDT

Pregnant migrants in U.S. Marshals Service (USMS) custody at the Texas border have had their newborns taken from them and put into foster care, Rewire.News investigative reporter Tina Vasquez has found. The newborns, who qualify as U.S. citizens since they were born in the U.S., have been handed over to the Texas Department of Family and Protective Services (DFPS).

The mothers can't be reunited with their infants until they are released from federal custody and have to be able to access legal help. Reporters "learned that women who find their way to advocacy organizations appear to be reuniting with their newborns, but Rewire.News was unable to verify what happens to the children of women who do not have access to legal help."

One OB-GYN who delivers babies of migrants talked to Vasquez using the pseudonym Dr. Shelly. "I don't know if they lose their babies for good," she said. "But I do know the process is torturous for them." She said one woman "cried for 72 hours straight" and was held in the hospital for five days for psychological treatment. "I was worried she was going to hurt herself when they took her back to the detention center," the doctor said. "Luckily in her case, they were eventually able to locate an aunt-in-law, her uncle's wife, who lived in Chicago. But this wasn't a blood relative, and it wasn't someone she'd ever met before." She recounted that a colleague "dashed back and forth between the waiting room and the patient’s room, taking photos of the aunt-in-law and the patient so they would have some idea of what each other looked like," because the migrant was in custody and wasn't allowed visitors.

Hospital workers went to great lengths, Dr. Shelly said, to try to help this woman in the event she was deported without her child. "When the nurses still thought the baby was going into foster care, they tried to help [the patient] memorize the name of the hospital," she said. "They were saying, 'We have your fingerprints, we have your baby's footprints. You have a legal right to your baby.' In case she got deported without her baby, the nurses wanted her to know the hospital where she gave birth and understand that we had the records to prove this was her baby."

The USMS coldly responded to Rewire.News with the comments, "Child placement and care is the responsibility of the prisoner" and "Under no circumstances may the newborn child be returned to the detention facility with the prisoner, except in accordance with the detention facility’s visiting policy, if any." If the mother doesn't have family in the U.S., the baby is seized and put into foster care. "It is the responsibility of the prisoner to notify the court, the [USMS], the hospital, and the attending physician, in writing, of her placement decision as well as the financial responsibility arrangements she has made for her child's care," the USMS said.

The state is denying that this happens. "The process or scenario you describe does not exist," Patrick Crimmins, Texas DFPS’ media relations manager, told Vasquez, continuing, "Migrants do not place newborns with DFPS. Children are only removed into the conservatorship of the State of Texas following an investigation into abuse or neglect, and a confirmed finding of abuse or neglect. Any removal also has to be approved by a judge." That directly conflicts with what the medical professionals and advocates for migrants see happening. Taylor Levy, legal coordinator of the El Paso non-profit Annunciation House, says she has seen "multiple cases" of this happening. "Migrants in criminal custody who have babies who are U.S. citizens are placed with DFPS if the mother is taken back to criminal custody, and the mother has no one with lawful status to agree to take in the baby."

more...

https://www.dailykos.com/stories/2019/5/28/1860921/-Trump-administration-separates-newborns-from-some-migrant-mothers-in-detention

[uponit7771]

1. This is a true evil nightmare

[Lars39]

2. Fucking nazis...crimes against humanity.

[onecaliberal]

3. I hope the soulless mother fuckers doing this rot.

[Karadeniz]

4. What fresh hell?

[Midnightwalk]

5. If sanity is ever restored

There will have to be trials for crimes against humanity. Following executive orders or even the law is not a defense.

And who does that spokesman think he is fooling. No shit migrants do not place their children with DFOS. ICE takes them away and does that.

How much worse will it get?

[uponit7771]

6. +1

[sinkingfeeling]

7. These government employees should burn in hell.

[backtoblue]

8. .

Evil

[lpbk2713]

9. Barbaric.

I often wonder what kind of individual would seek employment doing some
of the cruel and inhuman things these people do. "I was just doing my job"
is what they said at Nuremberg. And that didn't make it right.

[malaise]

10. These are crimes against humanity

Stop them! Stop them!

[dixiegrrrrl]

11. those babies are gonna end up in a for profit adoption agency like the one betsy devos is affiliated

with.

they charge around 50K for adoptions.
and they will get away with it because ICE/Gov't will do exactly as they did in the OP article..lie.
But separating children from parents is a classic method of genocide. No different than what the Gov. did to the American Indians, to the Filipinos
at the turn of century, it's a common tactic

Notice the "prisoners" mentality, the method of dehumanizing the immigrants.

I weep, because WE allowed that when we let cheney get away with Guantanamo.