In response to a new report out [last week] on families separated by deportation, I have to express my profound disgust with a system that has left more than 5000 citizen children in foster care because their parents were deported. These policies are un-American and deeply troubling.

   The report, entitled Shattered Families: The Perilous Intersection of Immigration Enforcement and the Child Welfare System, was released by the Applied Research Center. It found that “there are at least 5,100 children currently living in foster care who are prevented from uniting with their detained or deported parents” among other findings. It can be accessed here: http://www.arc.org/shatteredfamilies.

   This important report conservatively estimates that there are at least 5,100 children currently living in foster care whose parents have been either detained or deported (this projection is based on data collected from six key states and an analysis of trends in 14 additional states with similarly high numbers of foster care and foreign-born populations). This is approximately 1.25 percent of the total children in foster care. If the same rate holds true for new cases, in the next five years, at least 15,000 more children will face these threats to reunification with their detained and deported mothers and fathers. These children face formidable barriers to reunification with their families.

   The report also found that:

   In areas where local police aggressively participate in immigration enforcement, children of noncitizens are more likely to be separated from their parents and face barriers to reunification.

   These cases have emerged in at least 22 states in the last two years. This is a growing national problem, not one confined to border jurisdictions or states.

   An immigration policy that separates children from their parents is inhumane and un-American, and should not be an outcome of our immigration policy. 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. This Act would have provided discretionary authority to an immigration judge to determine that an alien parent of a United States citizen child should not be ordered removed, deported, or excluded from the United States.

   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 Immigration and Customs Enforcement (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 deportation proceedings.