Immigration and Customs Enforcement has released figures on how many people have been arrested for deportation because of a new information sharing agreement with the Office of Refugee Resettlement. Over the last five months 170 people nationwide have been arrested after they came forward to sponsor a child in detention.
The information sharing agreement alarmed advocacy groups because it uses children seeking asylum as "bait" to arrest immigrants who entered the country illegally. Heidi Altman, policy director for the National Immigrant Justice Center, said the number of children in detention has ballooned because families are afraid to sponsor them.
“And it’s also layering an impossible burden of guilt on the shoulders of young children who then themselves feel responsible for enforcement actions against their parents.”
ICE said 80 percent of the people who volunteered to sponsor detained children are undocumented. Sixty-four percent of those arrested had no criminal history except for entering the country illegally.
