Attorneys: Parents in fragile state for asylum interviews
Source: Associated Press
Elliot Spagat and Emily Schmall, Associated Press
Updated 12:03 pm CDT, Wednesday, July 4, 2018
LOS FRESNOS, Texas (AP) — Gabriel Canas, a bus driver from El Salvador who fled his homeland after members of MS-13 stormed his bus, did an initial screening interview for asylum under the worst circumstances.
He hadn't spoken to his 9-year-old daughter since the Border Patrol separated them two weeks earlier. And in that time, he had been moved repeatedly from one detention facility to another.
"The day I had my interview, I wasn't well because they'd taken my daughter away. I was worried sick. I didn't know where she was. I hadn't spoken to her," Canas told a judge at the Port Isabel Detention Center in Texas, where parents of many of the more than 2,000 children who were separated under the Trump administration's "zero tolerance" policy await their fate.
His case illustrates an overlooked effect of the separations: Some immigrants complain that they stumbled through their first asylum interviews when they were deeply distraught over losing their children. The interviews can have life-changing consequences because they are critical to establishing why families cannot return home safely.
Read more: https://www.chron.com/news/texas/article/Attorney-Parents-are-in-fragile-state-for-asylum-13049300.php
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