AUGUST 2011
RESOLVED, That the American Bar Association urges Congress to enact legislation, and the Department of Homeland Security to adopt policies, that:
a) Assure information pertaining to location and transfer either of immigration detainees who are parents, legal guardians or primary caregivers of minor children, or of the minor children themselves, or of changes of placement of those minor children, is shared among immigration authorities, state and local child welfare agencies, and state courts;
b) Assure the length of one’s status as an immigration detainee, or one’s removal or pending removal from the country, can not be the sole basis for a state not to provide legally mandated reasonable efforts to reunify children with their parent, legal guardian, or primary caretaker; and
c) Mandate the Department of Homeland Security to collect and report aggregate annual data on the number of U.S. citizen children impacted by the detention or deportation of a parent, legal guardian, or primary caregiver and resulting cost to child welfare agencies.