It’s been more than 20 years since Debora Ramirez first came to Massachusetts from Guatemala, fleeing both guerrillas who assaulted her and growing gang violence. Since then, she’s built a family in New Bedford, applied for asylum, married and raised three daughters.
But recently Ramirez did something that for many, would have been unimaginable only months ago: She planned to give guardianship of her two youngest daughters to her eldest, in case she and her partner are detained by federal immigration authorities.
“Seeing the situation get worse and worse daily, I had to make that decision,” she said crying during an interview. “I filled out the form. As a mother, it deeply saddened me. But you want to take care of your children in the best way. But it’s like letting go of a piece of yourself.”
Ramirez is one of many immigrants in Massachusetts fearing detention by federal authorities, and separation from their children. For months, that fear has gone unspoken, but now pragmatism is starting to take over as nonprofits, attorneys, and even municipalities offer support to families trying to protect their children.
This is “de-facto family separation,” said Rebecca Greening, co-director of the Family Justice Clinic at Harvard Law School, referring to the first Trump administration’s policy to try to deter immigration by separating migrant children from their parents.
”They’re detaining people who happen to be parents or caregivers,” she said.
Types of guardianship
Advocates like Claire Valentin strongly recommend mixed-status families take steps to prepare for the deportation of a parent or guardian.
“One of the most important steps is just having a conversation as a family and knowing what the plan is, in a child-appropriate way,” said Valentin, who is managing director of immigration and advocacy at Children’s Law Center of Massachusetts. “Making sure, whether it’s a 5-year-old or a teenager, that everyone in the family knows what will happen the day after a parent is detained.”
That conversation includes who will be the legal guardian for the child, whether they can provide financially, and how things could play out in the first week, months, or even year, if the parent is detained for a long time or deported.
In some cases Valentin recommends parents also secure passports for U.S. citizen children so they can travel abroad and reunify with the parent. She also recommends they pre-emptively register the U.S. citizen child with their consulate so they could potentially live abroad with the parent.
But the guardianship step is the most important one, because that person will shepherd the rest of the decision-making. Part of the support Valentin and other advocates provide is helping immigrants decide among their options.
“We have seen a lot more ICE arrests. ... There have been cases where there have been children left with no one to go to.”Courtney Henderson, director of immigrant affairs with the Brockton mayor’s office
There are at least three types of ways immigrants can choose who can care for their child. One is a caregiver authorization affidavit, which provides limited power to an individual to make medical and school decisions for a child for up to two years. That person lives in the same home as the child and generally doesn’t have the power to make legal decisions for the child.
The three-page affidavit contains basic information like the parent’s address, the caregiver’s name and address, names and birth dates for children, and contact information. The parent can note anything that the caregiver can’t do, like say, change their child’s school. The document is signed by witnesses and a notary public at the same time, and goes into effect if a person is detained. Advocates and attorneys recommend the caregiver keeps the original copy, and they make several other copies of the document.
This is the option Ramirez and her eldest daughter, who is in her late 20s, chose.
Valentin says it’s also the path she recommends most often, because it doesn’t require going to court. “The parent retains their rights as the parent, but they’re authorizing someone else to make certain decisions about school and medical care for a child in their absence, and that’s really important,” she said. Parents can retract their approval for the caregiver at any time too.
The second non-court option is a renewable temporary agent authorization, which gives someone the power to act as a parent in almost every way, but they can’t consent to the adoption of the child and aren’t required to live with them. The parent can also limit the power of this individual, and the agreement is good for 60 days. The temporary agent can handle financials related to the minor, anything related to school or medical decisions.
Finally, a legal guardian is a type of care that is granted by a court. The process usually requires court fees, but gives the appointed guardian the ability to act as a parent until the child turns 18 or a court ends the guardianship. Temporary guardianship can last anywhere from 10 days to three months. Permanent guardianship can last up to a year.
Some immigrants do go that route.
Greening of Harvard Law School worked with a family where the mother had a date where she had to leave the country. The shorter-term options didn’t make a lot of sense, especially since the children are remaining in the U.S. without their mother.
“That situation necessitates more long-term planning, which is really the guardianship route, which is court-involved. So there’s intricacies to that,” she said.
Urgency and support
Ramirez got help at New Bedford’s Community Economic Development Center of Southeastern Massachusetts, which has helped immigrants fill out more than 60 affidavits. Many immigrants in the local community have been detained, either on the streets or during required check-ins for their immigration cases.
“I think there is more of a sense of emergency to encourage families to have these elements in place,” said Corinn Williams, the center’s executive director. “Once they come to that decision to do this, they’re empowered at the same time of saying, ‘yeah, I’m kind of taking control over this really difficult situation.”’
Most of the work Williams’ group does is one-on-one with immigrant families, but some organizations hold larger events.
In Chelsea, La Colaborativa has organized family clinics, in partnership with Lawyers for Civil Rights. Attorneys ask that people bring their intended caregivers and IDs for notarization, and have everything set up for each family to complete the required forms right then and there. They’ve helped at least 60 families fill out affidavits this way, said Mirian Albert, senior attorney for Lawyers for Civil Rights.
“I think one of the biggest challenges is for families who are either newly arrived or don’t have many roots here. It has been difficult for them to identify an individual to be a potential caregiver,” she said.
Even a local hospital has gotten involved. Boston Medical Center created a family preparedness plan that guardians can fill out in English and Spanish. It even includes suggestions on how to speak to children of various ages about family separation.
The document goes through topics like choosing a caregiver for your child. It includes the caretaker affidavits and pages of information parents can fill out related to their child’s schools, child care, health insurance, medical history, local pharmacy and daily routine.
In Brockton, the impact on students has been felt with continued detentions throughout the year and the school system is also getting involved.
“We have seen a lot more ICE arrests, especially those who have children in the Brockton Public School system,” said Courtney Henderson, director of immigrant affairs with the mayor’s office.
“There have been cases where there have been children left with no one to go to,” she said, describing several instances where parents were detained and the children ended up in the state’s custody.
“The goal is really to keep them out of the Department of Children and Family Services,” Henderson said. “We want to put them with people that they have a relationship with.”
To help with that, Brockton Public Schools has longtime parent advocates who speak multiple languages and work with families to navigate guardianship documents — whether it’s connecting them to local nonprofits, or walking them through the paperwork.
“This time around, I think a lot of the anxiety is around what seems to be a more indiscriminate nature to the immigration enforcement activities — that has really increased anxiety amongst our families,” said Kellie Jones, director of bilingual education for the district.
Harvard’s Family Justice Clinic helped the school district assist at least 30 families with documents. Jones said for months, there was “reticence” around talking about family preparedness because parents didn’t want to think of being separated from children.
“The belief was like, ‘oh, well, if I get detained and deported, I’ll just bring my kids with me.’ And the legal process is a lot more complicated than that,” she said. Jones said some of the Brockton schools are keeping kinship paperwork on hand, which other districts don’t do, since the move is preemptive.
“We’re figuring out ‘how are we going to ensure that kids continue to be enrolled in school, continue to attend school, having their educational and safety needs met,’” she said.
Ramirez said she’s considered reaching out to her daughters’ school in New Bedford, but that she’s lucky because her oldest daughter has already been to parent-teacher conferences to translate for her. If she were detained, the daughter could step in and pick up the children without issue.
But Ramirez does still worry about detention and being deported. She completed the kinship documents before a recent ICE check-in related to her asylum case, and was relieved when she went home. But the future is uncertain. She’s afraid to go back to Guatemala, where distant family members still in the country have told her the situation is even worse now than it was when she left. She also worries about how her U.S. citizen daughters would fare there, if their eldest sister arranged for them to rejoin their mom.
“I’m not 100% sure of what I would do, of what the future holds. But I know as a mother, I want to be with them as they grow up,” she said. The caregiver paperwork at least helps her take control of some part of the future. Ramirez said that she felt like she was speaking on behalf of many mothers in her situation.
“We all have that same terror, that same fear of everything that is happening. This is something difficult for us to make a decision like this, but we still have to do it.”
