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US-POLITICS-IMMIGRATION-CHILDREN-RIGHTS-UN-LEAD
US must stop separating migrant children from parents: UN
GENEVA, June 5, 2018 (BSS/AFP) – The United Nations on Tuesday urged
Washington to immediately halt its controversial practice of separating
asylum-seeking Central American immigrant children from their parents at the
southern border.
The UN rights office said it was “deeply concerned” over the “zero
tolerance” policy introduced by the administration of US President Donald
Trump in a bid to deter illegal immigration.
Spokeswoman Ravina Shamdasani warned the US policy had “led to people
caught entering the country irregularly being subjected to criminal
prosecution and having their children — including extremely young children –
– taken away from them as a result.”
She said information received from US civil society groups indicated that
several hundred children had been separated from their parents at the border
since October, including a one-year-old.
“The US should immediately halt this practice,” she told reporters in
Geneva.
“The practice of separating families amounts to arbitrary and unlawful
interference in family life, and is a serious violation of the rights of the
child,” she said.
“The use of immigration detention and family separation as a deterrent
runs counter to human rights standards and principles,” she said.
Shamdasani stressed that children’s rights were “generally held in high
regard” in the United States, but she lamented that the country was the only
one in the world that had not yet ratified the UN Convention on the Rights of
the Child.
Despite this, she insisted that Washington was bound by international
human rights laws that its current practices were flouting.
“The child’s best interest should always come first, including over
migration management objectives or other administrative concerns,” she said.
“It is therefore of great concern that in the US, migration control
appears to have been prioritised over the effective care and protection of
migrant children.”
“Detention is never in the best interests of the child and always
constitutes a child rights violation,” she said, calling on Washington to
“adopt non-custodial alternatives that allow children to remain with their
families.”
The US says the policy aims to stem a surge of poor families mostly from
Guatemala, El Salvador and Honduras pouring into the United States.
Citing the daily violence in their home countries, thousands each week
cross the US-Mexico border and immediately turn themselves in to authorities
asking for asylum.
William Spindler of the UN refugee agency stressed Tuesday that “the right
to claim asylum is a fundamental human right… and it is also part of the
law in the United States.”
BSS/AFP/RY/1625 hrs