Meet Baby Constantin

Meet Baby Constantin

https://www.nytimes.com/2019/06/14/the-weekly/trump-immigration-border-separation-family.html

The youngest known child taken from his parents at the U.S.-Mexico border was a 4-month-old baby named Constantin Mutu. While he was sent to Michigan to live with a foster family, his father was sent to a detention facility and ultimately deported to Romania, uncertain when he would see his son again.

Caitlin Dickerson, an immigration correspondent for The Times, found Constantin, one of thousands of children separated under the Trump administration’s “zero-tolerance” border policy. In the latest episode of “The Weekly,” she reveals how he spent five tumultuous months away from those who loved him most.

Episode 3: ‘Baby Constantin’

Producer/Director: Sweta Vohra

Caitlin Dickerson is a Peabody award-winning national immigration reporter, who profiles the lives of immigrants, including those without legal status. Last year, Caitlin reported that the Trump administration was separating hundreds of migrant children from their parents. Weeks later, the administration acknowledged what was happening, calling it a “zero tolerance policy.” She can be reached at caitlin.dickerson@nytimes.com. Follow her on Twitter: @itscaitlinhd

·       Constantin’s parents, Vasile and Florentina Mutu, left their home in Romania with two of their five children in early 2018 for Mexico, with plans to seek asylum in the United States.

·       They lost each other in Mexico. After U.S. border agents apprehended Vasile and baby Constantin in Texas, his wife and their 4-year-old son returned to Romania from Mexico.

-->

Trump Administration Continues to Jail Children- Divide Families

 The ACLU on Friday said HHS' latest filing in a case on child separations proves that the Trump administration doesn't know how many families it split up at the border. In the court filing in Mrs. L v. ICE, Jonathan White, a commander for the U.S. Public Health Service Commissioned Corps, concurred with an OIG report stating that the total number of children separated at the border was "unknown." 

"The Trump administration's response is a shocking concession that it can't easily find thousands of children it ripped from parents, and doesn't even think it's worth the time to locate each of them," ACLU attorney Lee Gelernt said in a statement. "The administration also doesn't dispute that separations are ongoing in significant numbers." 

White, for his part, said HHS never sought to tally the total number of children separated from their parents at the border — only those in the "class" identified in the Mrs. L case. "It is critical to understand that HHS knew the identity, location, and clinical condition of all re-categorized children at all times during their stay in [Office of Refugee Resettlement] shelters," White wrote. "HHS did not 'lose' any of them. OIG found no evidence to the contrary."