MIAMI HERALD: Boy, 11, left behind as parents are deported
ALFONSO CHARDY
MIAMI HERALD
Oct 18, 2007
MIAMI HERALD: Boy, 11, left behind as parents are deported
In an extraordinary move, Miami's Mexican Consulate has gained custody of an 11-year-old boy left behind in Homestead when immigration officials deported his parents recently after police stopped them for driving a vehicle with an expired tag.
Mexican consul-in-charge Beatriz Navarro told The Miami Herald Wednesday that the consulate was working quickly to reunite the boy with his parents, who are now back in their hometown of Morelia.
The consul said the boy's parents were detained after police checked an expired tag on their vehicle -- and then called the Border Patrol when it turned out the parents were in the country illegally. The boy apparently was at school.
It's unclear which police agency handled the case, but the Border Patrol confirmed that the agency arrested the couple and turned them over to Immigration and Customs Enforcement for detention. Immigration and Customs Enforcement said it would release a statement later Wednesday.
A friend of the family took the boy to the Krome detention center in Southwest Miami-Dade immigration advocates said, in an effort to reunite the 11-year-old with his family, but guards turned them away last month.
Herm
The case, first repoted by NBC6, upset South Florida's immigrant community because it seemed to confirm what they perceive to be the callousness of immigration officials after raids in New Bedford, Mass., when hundreds of illegal workers were detained at a factory and some children were left stranded at home or daycare.
''The police have given us assurances that they don't do the work of immigration agents,'' Mart
In the past, immigration officials have insisted that if a child is involved in a deportation arrest, one parent is allowed to remain free to care for the child -- or at the very least the Department of Children and Families is called to pick up the child and hold him while the couple is in deportation proceedings.
It's unclear whether ICE officials knew the boy existed when they detained the parents.
Navarro said she was unable to verify whether the parents advised immigration officials about their child.
Victor Col
The Mexican child's case came to the attention of immigrant rights activists in Homestead when a friend of the deported couple approached them a few days ago with the story that a child had been left behind.
Mart
While the couple went to work in a nursery, Mart
Mart
