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Immigrant families released into the US fail to report back

by Brett Crandall

Posted: 09.29.2014 at 6:39 PM

According to an Associated Press report, an official with U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) has revealed tens of thousands immigrants families aren't meeting with federal immigrant agents as instructed.

When more than 60,000 immigrant families traveling from Central America arrived this past year, immigration officials released them to meet up with family in the U.S. on the condition they would report to immigration officials near their destination.

Rep. Henry Cuellar, D-Laredo, said he is not surprised.

“Homeland security should have known this,” Cuellar said. “This is what I’ve been talking about for a long time, it doesn't surprise me. Now we have to find those people.”

An ICE official said about 70 percent of immigrant families released from border patrol custody during the recent immigration influx are not showing up to appointments, according to the report.
  
Finding the tens of thousands of immigrants now scattered across the country is not very realistic.

"They probably have bigger fish to look after," Weslaco immigration attorney San Juanita Campos said.

Campos said most of these immigrants don’t understand the legal system.

"They don't know any better and they didn't understand the process. They were scared to death when they came to this country and probably half of what was told to them they didn't understand,” Campos said.

She does not blame them.

“I was a personal injury attorney for 27 years and now I see it as a piece of cake compared to immigration court," Campos said.

So where are they now?

Campos suggests some may have returned home, and many of them hired an attorney to seek asylum.

"They're not all hiding under the bed," Campos said.

Those who cross the border illegally have one year to file for asylum. It’s a lengthy process, and it may take years before we know what happened to the families who passed through the Valley over the summer.

Final deportation had been ordered for at least 860 people traveling in families caught at the border since May but only 14 people had reported as ordered.