Groups to file suit on behalf of migrants' kids
CASEY WOODS
Miami Herald
Sep 25, 2006
A coalition of immigrant advocates, vowing to fight for a vulnerable group that they say is losing out in the contentious immigration debate -- the U.S.-born children of undocumented immigrants -- announced plans Friday to file a class-action lawsuit.
''This is a group of American citizens who don't have anyone to fight for them,'' said Alfonso Oviedo, president of American Fraternity, also known as the Nicaraguan Fraternity. ``[Their parents] now find themselves under constant threat of deportation . . . the ones who will suffer the most will not be the parents; it will be the children.''
Oviedo, flanked by representatives from Honduran Unity and the Peruvian-American Coalition, announced a class-action lawsuit the organizations are preparing on behalf of American children of illegal immigrants. The lawsuit will argue that the children's constitutional rights have been violated because of the unremitting fear that they will be deported with their parents, and so denied the benefits that come with growing up in the United States.
At least 10 children are already part of the lawsuit, and the advocacy groups are inviting other families to join it. They plan on filing the case in federal court on Oct. 4.
