Six Million Children of unauthorized parents

“Millions of Children, Citizens Impacted by U.S. Immigration Enforcement,” by Tory Johnson (April 3, 2017) reports that:

“More than 16 million people in the United States live with at least one undocumented family member, often a parent, who may be targeted for deportation. More than eight million of these residents are citizens. And the majority of them—almost 6 million—are children under the age of 18.

“ICE issued more than 200,000 deportations for parents with citizen children between 2010 and 2012, according to the most recent government data available. In 2011, an estimated 5,000 U.S. citizen children with a detained or deported parent were in foster care.

“While there are some policies in place designed to protect parental rights, such as ICE’s 2013 Parental Interests Directive, significant issues persist and it can be incredibly difficult for a parent to reunite or regain custody of a child following detention or deportation. There is also a risk that under the new administration the policy could be changed, rescinded, or violated.”

Students and U.S. births

Pew Research estimates about 3.9 million kindergarten through 12th-grade students in U.S. public and private schools in 2014 – or 7.3% of the total – were children of unauthorized immigrants….an increase since the end of the Great Recession in 2009, when such students numbered 3.6 million and accounted for 6.6% of the total.

U.S.-born children made up 81% of all children of unauthorized immigrants enrolled in grades K-12 in 2014.

 

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