Separated: Inside an American Tragedy

by Jacob Soboroff

For these thirty-seven children, the hope that they would soon see, speak with, and touch their parents for the first time in too long must have filled their heads. But as they pulled into the parking lot outside the detention center, that hope withered. The vans began idling in the parking lot at two thirty in the afternoon as staff from the Harlingen shelter brought the children into the ICE facility, designed to detain adults only. The shelter staff was told paperwork to secure release of the parents in order to reunify them wasn’t yet complete, so the kids packed up and headed back into the vans in the parking lot, where they waited. And waited. And waited. Shelter staff called back to colleagues in Harlingen to ask for more vans, to allow the children to stretch out within them, and to have food to eat. As day turned to night the staff again attempted to jump-start reunifications by bringing the children back inside, but many of the kids were too cold to sit inside the air-conditioned facility and so went back to the vans, where they could rest more comfortably. As Immigration and Customs Enforcement officials inside the facility clocked out and went home for the day, Andrew Carter, the regional director for BCFS, wrote to his boss, Kevin Dinnin, the company’s CEO, explaining what had happened. It is 22:30 and they are still in the vans and not one of our children has been checked in. In addition, there are other vans with kids from other facilities that are waiting a...