Programs Detention & Asylum
Encarnación is a young woman from Guatemala who was picked up by immigration agents raiding the poultry processing plant where she worked. The fact that Encarnación was a mother with a baby at home did not matter. She was detained and charged with using false identification and identity theft—a charge that has since been rejected by the U.S. Supreme Court.
When Encarnación was first detained, her son, Carlos, was six months old. Carlos is a U.S. citizen and while his mother was in detention, he was adopted, against Encarnación's will, by a local couple.
In January 2011, the Missouri Supreme Court sent the case of a Guatemalan woman whose parental rights were terminated following an immigration raid at her workplace back to the lower court for a retrial. Encarnación Bail Romero, whose son was adopted by an American couple against her wishes, has been separated from her child for nearly four years. While the Supreme Court reversed the termination of Ms. Bail Romero’s parental rights and the adoption decision, the Court was unable to reunite Ms. Bail Romero with her son because procedural errors in the family court require the case to be tried again.
The Detention and Asylum Program works to protect the rights of families impacted by immigration enforcement. We focus in particular on the thousands of undocumented, immigrant women whose parental rights are violated, and sometimes terminated, when they are detained or deported.
We work to ensure that the Department of Homeland Security institutionalizes and enforces sufficient protections to keep families together. We also advocate for policies and procedures that guarantee child welfare practices do not discriminate against parents on the basis of their immigration status or cultural background.
Read a moving letter from a child of a detainee currently in foster care.
*Names have been changed to protect women and children
