Migrant arrests sever parents from kids

[AlphaCentauri]

Brothers Ismael, Luis and Edwin Valeriano are U.S. citizens, but their lives have been upended by the arrest of their father as part of an escalating crackdown on illegal immigrants.

In March, the boys' 38-year-old father, Ismael Valeriano, a single parent from Mexico City, was detained for being in the country illegally after Phoenix police arrested him on a misdemeanor DUI warrant.

His three children, all 16 and younger, learned about their father's arrest while they were still at school. For more than a week they were left home alone to fend for themselves.

To get money for food, they sold some of their puppies. To get to school, they rummaged through their east Phoenix apartment for bus fare. Neighbors, friends and relatives finally stepped in to buy groceries, pay the rent and care for the children.

"I was shocked. I freaked out. I didn't know what to do," said Edwin, 16, the oldest of the three children. Luis is 15. Ismael Jr. is 12.

The Valeriano brothers are among thousands of U.S.-citizen children being separated from their immigrant parents because of the increased removal of people who are in the country illegally. Immigration officials do not keep track of family data for immigrants who are detained or removed, but officials say the number of children affected is undoubtedly rising.

The crackdown has been especially intense in Arizona.

"As we identify and remove more people from the U.S., a greater number of these people will have minor children," said Vincent Picard, a spokesman for U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement.

Immigration officials say families of arrested immigrants are treated with compassion.

Child-welfare advocates, however, say the crackdowns are having a negative effect on children, hurting their emotional, economic and educational well-being.

The issue has caught the attention of some Democratic members in Congress, who in May held hearings calling into question recent work-site raids that left hundreds of children separated from their parents.

"It's really hard to imagine something more traumatic to a child's well-being and development than the forcible separation from a child's parent or caregiver," said Miriam Calderon, a senior policy director at the National Council of La Raza, a Latino civil-rights organization.

In fiscal 2007, ICE removed 240,779 people from the country, up 55 percent from 2003. ICE officials in Arizona removed nearly 42,500 in 2007, or 18 percent of the total.

http://www.azcentral.com/news/articles/2008/07/06/20080706children0706.html

[midnight]

1. Family values are only good if......

they make them up as they go along.

[flashl]

2. When they are not severing family ties, they lock up the entire family at Camp Hutto. nt