The U.S. government is offering to pay immigrant children to leave the United States — and threatening to come for their parents if they don’t.
That’s according to the American Immigration Lawyers Association, whose Texas chapter posted about the new Immigration and Customs Enforcement operation on Friday.
According to the association, the operation, reportedly named “Freaky Friday,” will send letters to children who are classified as unaccompanied, meaning they came to the border without a parent or legal guardian and have their own immigration cases. Those letters will make several threats, including that ICE will arrest the children’s parents or other family members in the United States if they do not give up their cases, including the special rights they have as children in the immigration system, and instead accept $2,500 for returning to their home countries.
The letters will also threaten that if the children do not give up, when they turn 18, ICE will immediately detain them in its adult facilities, which have notorious and worsening conditions, as I and many other journalists have reported this year. The American Immigration Lawyers Association said that ICE is expecting legal challenges over this move.
And, in fact, that has already happened.
The federal government holds unaccompanied children in the custody of the Office of Refugee Resettlement, part of the Department of Health and Human Services, in facilities where social workers try to find the children’s relatives so they can be released. Sometimes, those case workers struggle to find someone who can take a child, and in the past, those children have sometimes ended up in ICE custody when they turned 18.
In 2020, a federal judge ruled in a court case known as Garcia Ramirez v. U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement that ICE should place young people who age out of the Office of Refugee Resettlement facilities in the least restrictive setting possible, such as in ICE’s alternatives to detention program, rather than in an ICE detention center. The federal government agreed to new training for ICE officers about how to make these determinations.
On Saturday, the groups who brought that class action lawsuit — American Immigration Council and the National Immigrant Justice Center — filed a motion in the case asking the judge to block detentions resulting from the new program. On Monday, Judge Rudolph Contreras did just that, and he ordered the administration to produce any directives and policies related to the new program.
The American Immigration Lawyers Association said that ICE would begin by sending the letters to children ages 14 and older, but the agency could decide to send them to kids as young as 10. It would begin with detained children, but the agency might also send the letters to children who have been released from government custody to loved ones.
ICE said that the association’s allegations were false, but the agency admitted that it is offering a “voluntary option” to children, starting with 17-year-olds, for payment to return home. The statement did not give much detail about the program.
“The anti-ICE activists have made up a ridiculous term, ‘Freaky Friday,’ to instill fear and spread misinformation that drives the increased violence occurring against federal law enforcement,” said Emily Covington, assistant director for the ICE Office of Public Affairs, via email.
Covington said that any payment made to the children would happen after an immigration judge approves their request to drop their case and they return to their country of origin.
ICE did not respond to follow up questions about whether the $2,500 amount is correct or clarification about which details from the legal association the agency considered false.
Marion “Mickey” Donovan-Kaloust, legal services director at Immigrant Defenders Law Center, which has represented unaccompanied children in the San Diego region, called the new Trump administration tactic potentially exploitive.
“The Trump administration has demonstrated repeatedly that they find due process inconvenient to their mass deportation agenda, even when it comes to vulnerable immigrant children,” Donovan-Kaloust said. “As immigration attorneys representing hundreds of unaccompanied children, we remain on high alert to protect the due process rights of our clients.”
Casa Cornelia, a legal services nonprofit that has long represented unaccompanied children in the San Diego Immigration Court, particularly those in government custody, declined to be interviewed about the new operation. Though some legal organizations who work with children appear to have received some type of memo about the new operation, Casa Cornelia said it hadn’t received any official communications about the change.
In an emailed statement, the organization said that it is concerned about the reports of the new ICE operation.
“Immigration law is complex, and this complexity is heightened by the unique circumstances that children face,” the organization said. “Casa Cornelia remains dedicated to our clients, providing guidance, advocacy, and the protections afforded to non-citizen children by federal law. We continue to monitor the situation closely and provide accurate, current information to help children make informed decisions within the law.”
The American Immigration Lawyers Association recommended that lawyers prepare children for the possibility of receiving letters and focus on educating detained children about their rights.
Thank you for reading. I’m open for tips, suggestions and feedback on Instagram @katemorrisseyjournalist and on X/Twitter and Bluesky @bgirledukate.
In Other News
Fundraising for a deportation: After a long-fought battle to stay in the United States that began under the first Trump administration, National City parents Francisco Javier Duarte and his wife Rosenda Perez were ordered deported in September. The couple’s daughter posted a video of Duarte on Instagram with his paleta cart saying goodbye to the San Diego community. The family has raised more than $48,000 to help with the transition.
More border wall: Alexandra Mendoza reported in The San Diego Union-Tribune that the Trump administration will build even more border wall in the San Diego region. The project includes about 10 miles of new barrier near Otay Mesa and Tecate.
More ICE arrests: The ICE office in San Diego is increasing its arrest numbers at a higher rate than elsewhere in the country, Shelby Bremer reported for NBC 7. Bremer’s analysis attributed that change to an increase in arrests of people who have no criminal history.
Automated license plate readers: Wendy Fry at CalMatters reported that the state is suing the city of El Cajon over its release of surveillance data to agencies in other states in violation of California law.
Border tech: For inewsource, Sofía Mejías-Pascoe found a way to cover a recent conference about border technology and surveillance held in San Diego that was closed to the press — even when she offered to purchase a $1,000 ticket.
Leave a comment