Center for Immigration studies executive director Mark Krikorian insisted in an interview on VCY America’s Crosstalk yesterday that “no family is ever split by immigration law.”
Addressing situations where the undocumented parent of an American citizen is deported, Krikorian said, “No child is ever taken away from a person who is deported, because children can always go with their parents, which is what they should do.”
“No family is ever split by immigration law,” he said. “It’s the decisions of the immigrants themselves either to come here and split their families.”
Between 2010 and 2012, the country conducted 200,000 deportations of parents of U.S. citizens. An Applied Research Center investigation in 2011 found that at least 5,100 children whose parents had been detained or deported were thrown into the U.S. foster care system. Last year, President Obama issued a directive aimed at curbing detentions of parents who are the primary caregivers of minor children.
No child is ever taken away from a person who is deported, because children can always go with their parents, which is what they should do, it’s the appropriate thing to do. Or if the kids are born here, they have the right to stay too, and the parents, if they can find an aunt or somebody else for the kids to stay with, they can do that, that’s their prerogative. No family is ever split by immigration law. It’s the decisions of the immigrants themselves either to come here and split their families, or to stay here illegally, they have American children then they’re caught up into it and decide not to take their families back with them. That’s where the decision comes from that ends up splitting families.
