Adrees Latif/Reuters
The Trump administration’s “zero-tolerance” immigration policy has created a “recipe for disaster” where deported immigrant parents may lose custody of their children to American foster parents, an investigation by the Associated Press has found. Court documents and immigration records reviewed by the AP reportedly showed a disconnect between state and federal authorities that could allow state judges to grant custody of children to foster families without even notifying the parents. Experts say one such case that occurred during the Obama administration reveals loopholes that could prove disastrous with President Trump’s family separation policy, under which hundreds of parents were separated from their children and many alleged they were forced to sign waivers agreeing to leave their kids behind. Araceli Ramos Bonilla, a native of El Salvador, was separated from her daughter, Alexa, for nearly two years after a Michigan judge granted custody to the girl’s foster parents after Bonilla had been deported. Alexa, who’d been brought to the U.S. at the age of 2, was reportedly labeled an “unaccompanied minor” after her mother was deported. A Michigan family later successfully gained custody of her. Bonilla only regained custody when Salvadoran government officials got involved and the Justice Department intervened. Experts fear many more immigrant families will suffer a similar fate under Trump’s harsher immigration policies. “We have the kids in the U.S. and the parents down in Central America, and now they’ll bring all these child welfare agencies into play,” John Sandweg, who headed U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement under the Obama administration, told the AP. “It’s just a recipe for disaster.”