Work place raids leave children without parents

The Workforce Subcommittee held a hearing this morning on “ICE (Immigration and Customs Enforcement) Workplace Raids: Their impact on U.S. Children, Families, and Communities.” The subcommittee is under the Education and Labor Committee chaired by Congressman George Miller. The witnesses included James Spero, acting Deputy Assistant Director of the Office of Investigations from the U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement. Janet Murguia, president of the National Council of La Raza was on hand in addition to Katherine Gibey, principle of San Pedro Elementary school in Ran Rafael, Ca and Simon Romo, chief counsel to the New Mexico Child Protective Services.

The subcommittee convened as there is growing concern over raids in the workplace which are taking children away from their parents. There are reports of children losing their parents in immigration raids, which is resulting in stress, and in some cases post traumatic stress disorder for the children, let alone the issue of tearing families and communities apart. When incidents like this occur children miss school which is further affecting the education system. 4.7 million children have at least one parent that is in this country illegally, and the issues that these situations are causing for children is becoming an issue that is gaining more and more attention.

Last week the largest immigration raid to ever be conducted took place in Iowa where almost 400 people were taken into custody. From Joe Wilson’s (R-SC) testimony, he states that “an article by the Associated Press reported that “56 were released on humanitarian grounds, typically because their arrest would leave a child with no custodian. A handful were released because of medical conditions.””