New York Rep. José Serrano Blasts ICE Over Foster Care Stats

He called on the Department of Homeland Security to halt and review all deportations in which kids could be impacted.

By Jorge Rivas Nov 03, 2011

New York City Congressman José Serrano, of the Bronx, called policies that deport parents and place their citizen children in foster care "un-American" and "deeply troubling." Serrano’s comments came after he read that an estimated 5,100 U.S. born children are currently in foster care because their parents have been deported in a groundbreaking new report released on Wednesday by Colorlines.com publisher the Applied Research Center. 

"An immigration policy that separates children from their parents is inhumane and un-American, and should not be an outcome of our immigration policy," Serrano wrote in a press release. "Keeping families united is a basic human right, and a fundamental principle in our nation. I am deeply troubled that our nation is implementing policies which could end up permanently separating families and causing children to end up in adoption proceedings."

"When I introduced the Child Citizen Protection Act for the first time several years ago, I warned that a rigid deportation policy would end up separating children from their parents for no good reason. Today we have learned that that dire prediction is turning out to be true."

"Today I call on DHS Secretary Napolitano to immediately halt and review all deportation proceedings where a child is being held by child protective services as a result of ICE actions. This indiscriminate and harmful policy outcome is wrong, and it must end immediately. A parent should never lose their child simply because of non-criminal deportation proceedings."