by Thomas Breen
Martha Stone and U.S. Rep. DeLauro at Friday’s presser.
“Benjamin,” 16, spent 143 days in federal immigration custody — in Texas and then at a shelter in Groton and then in New Haven.
“I feel trapped,” he said, according to a quote shared by his lawyer at City Hall on Friday. “I can’t leave. And everywhere I go, I am always accompanied by a worker. I’m so young. It’s hard not feeling free.”
“Benjamin’s” lawyer, Martha Stone — the founder and special counsel for the Hartford-based Center for Children’s Advocacy — shared those words on Friday during a press conference convened by U.S. Rep. Rosa DeLauro and attended by Mayor Justin Elicker, legal advocates, and child healthcare experts.
DeLauro organized the event in response to a recent CT Insider report about unaccompanied immigrant children who have been held in the custody of the federal Office of Refugee Resettlement (ORR) for hundreds of days. That’s because of Trump administration policy changes making it harder for kids to be reunited with sponsors or family members, as well as data sharing with immigration enforcement that discourages family members from coming forward to claim custody of their children.
CT Insider reported that a five-year-old spent 118 days in federal immigration custody in Connecticut — sleeping at a foster home and spending a vast majority of each day at a Westville nonprofit called Children’s Community Programs of Connecticut. That five-year-old was able to see her mom for only one hour each week.
On Friday, DeLauro and Tess Reagan, the managing director of the Hartford-based nonprofit Kids in Need of Defense (KIND), said that, nationwide, the average stay of children in ORR detention is now over 200 days.
“That’s unconscionable and, in my view, it’s child abuse,” DeLauro said.
She said the Trump administration has defended the new rules leading to prolonged separation of children from their families as prioritizing the children’s safety. “We all want kids to be safe,” DeLauro said. “That doesn’t mean they have to be detained for 200 days.” (ORR and the federal Department of Health and Human Services did not respond to requests for comment by the publication time of this article.)
“This tortured process is family separation by other means,” DeLauro continued. “The Trump administration’s goal is to make reunification so traumatic and so difficult for families that they choose to leave instead. It is child abuse as a form of deterrence, and we must end it.”
Stone, meanwhile, spoke up at Friday’s press conference for the four unaccompanied minors that her organization has represented — alongside Koskoff, Koskoff, & Bieder — in recent federal lawsuits.
After spending well over 100 days in federal custody, she said, each of these four children has now been freed and reunited with a sponsor or family member.
But not before enduring such a prolonged separation from their loved ones that most developed anxiety and depression.
“I cried often,” Stone said, quoting a 14-year-old named “Miguel” who had been in federal custody for 147 days. (Stone changed the names of her clients on Friday to protect their privacy.) “I got headaches. It was so painful. It was hard to think about anything else. Being in detention was like being stuck in a waiting room for something that never happens.”
She quoted “Luis,” Miguel’s 16-year-old brother — who also spent 167 days in federal custody — as saying that detention was “a nightmare.”
And she said that still another client, “Camilla,” was only five years old and spent 118 days in federal custody. She was able to see her mom for only one hour a week. “She had nightmares,” Stone said, and “avoided discussion of her family in separation.” She “struggled with anxiety and fear.”
Also at Friday’s presser, Reagan called for the Trump administration to “immediately reimburse legal services providers for work already completed” and ensure that “robust legal services for unaccompanied children is in place moving forward.”
She said that KIND is owed more than $20 million from the federal government for legal work completed on behalf of unaccompanied children. She also said that the ORR contract under which organizations like hers have performed these services is set to expire on Friday.
She also called for Congress to “continue rigorous oversight of actions that jeopardize children’s due process and safety,” and for state leaders to “help identify solutions that protect children living in our community and preserve access” to services needed to keep them safe.
“These children are not statistics,” Reagan said. “I have met them — in detention facilities, shelters, schools, and communities across Connecticut. They are young people that survived extraordinary hardship” — including violence, abuse, trafficking, and family separation. “These children need legal representaiton” now more than ever.
Click here to watch Friday’s press conference in full.
DeLauro: “It is child abuse as a form of deterrence, and we must end it.”