Alexa Sendukas, managing attorney at the Galveston-Houston Immigration Project, said in recent weeks, 18 of her clients sponsoring unaccompanied children have reported ICE officers in plain clothes have visited or called their homes, prompting fear and concern they are being targeted for deportation.
The visits have also been reported in recent weeks across the U.S as an effort to crack down on potential human trafficking, The Washington Post reported.
Sendukas said the visits — which in some cases, clients have told her involved ICE agents asking sponsors for their immigration status — are concerning because sponsors and their homes have already gone through rigorous vetting by contractors part of the Office of Refugee Resettlement.
Most clients have reported that four ICE officers visit their homes, with 3 men and 1 woman, and ask varying questions, from asking how the child is doing in school to wanting to speak to the child and see their bedroom, Sendukas said. She added all the unaccompanied minors have already had removal orders dimissed through immigration court, or are in proceeding to have them dismissed.
But the immigration status of the children’s sponsors, whom the immigration project does not represent, is not entirely known, Sendukas said.
“If ICE does go after undocumented sponsors, we’re looking at the next version of family separation, and it will be devastating,” she said. “We have young children who are going to be irreparably harmed.”
Houston Chronicle: ICE reportedly visiting homes of Houston migrant children, sparking fear of sponsor deportations
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