The Trump administration is planning to remove nearly 700 Guatemalan children who had come to the U.S. without their parents, according to a letter sent Friday by Sen. Ron Wyden of Oregon.
The removals would violate the Office of Refugee Resettlement's “child welfare mandate and this country’s long-established obligation to these children,” Wyden told Angie Salazar, acting director of the office within the Department of Health and Human Services that is responsible for migrant children who arrive in the U.S. alone.
“Unaccompanied children are some of the most vulnerable children entrusted to the government’s care,” the Democratic senator wrote, asking for the deportation plans to be terminated. “In many cases, these children and their families have had to make the unthinkable choice to face danger and separation in search of safety.”
