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ecently deported, 110 a trend also noted by staff at a humanitarian organization that aids
migrants in Nogales. 111 A recent study of 1,000 Mexican deportees found that one-fourth said
they had US-born children and 28 percent considered the United States home. 112
Human Rights Watch has requested but not yet received information from ICE and CBP on
ties to families in the United States among the unauthorized immigrants they have referred
for criminal prosecution, but recently released data indicates that in the past two years,
over 205,000 parents of US citizens were deported. 113 That number does not include the
many deportees with US citizen or permanent resident spouses, parents, or siblings.
Article 17 of the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights (ICCPR), to which the
United States is a party, states that no one shall be “subjected to arbitrary or unlawful
interference with his privacy, family, home or correspondence.” 114 Article 23 provides that
“[t]he family is the natural and fundamental group unit of society and is entitled to
protection by society and the state,” and that all men and women have the right “to marry
and to found a family.” 115 The UN Human Rights Committee, the international expert body
that monitors compliance with the ICCPR, has stated that despite a state’s power to
regulate entry or residence, non-citizens may still enjoy the protection of the Covenant,
particularly when considerations of respect for family life arise.” 116 The right to found a
family, the Committee has noted elsewhere, includes the right “to live together.” 117 Even
110 Human Rights Watch interview with Mary Galvan, Instituto Madre Assunta para Mujeres Migrantes, Tijuana, Mexico,
October 16, 2012.
111 Human Rights Watch interviews with Sister Alma Delia Isais Aguilar, Nogales, Mexico, April 4, 2013; and with Sister Maria
Engracia Robles, Kino Border Initiative, Nogales, Mexico, April 5, 2013.
112 Center for Latin American Studies, University of Arizona, “In the Shadow of the Wall: Family Separation, Immigration
Enforcement and Security, Preliminary Data from the Migrant Border Crossing Study,” March 2013,
http://las.arizona.edu/sites/las.arizona.edu/files/UA_Immigration_Report2013web.pdf (accessed April 14, 2013). See also
Michael Danielson, “Documented Failures: The Consequences of Immigration Policy on the US-Mexico Border,” Kino Border
Initiative, Jesuit Refugee Service/USA, Jesuit Conference of the United States, February 2013,
http://www.jesuit.org/jesuits/wp-content/uploads/Kino_FULL-REPORT_web.pdf (accessed May 2, 2013) (finding almost one
in three parents deported between January and March 2012 had at least one child living in the United States).
113 Seth Freed Wessler, “Nearly 205K Deportations of Parents of US Citizens in Just Over Two Years,” Colorlines, December 17,
2012, http://colorlines.com/archives/2012/12/us_deports_more_than_200k_parents.html (accessed January 22, 2013).
114 International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights (ICCPR), G.A. res. 2200A (XXI), 21 U.N. GAOR Supp. (No. 16) at 52, U.N.
Doc. A/6316 (1966), 999 U.N.T.S. 171, entered into force March 23, 1976, ratified by the United States on June 8, 1992, art. 17.
115 Ibid., art. 23.
116 UN Human Rights Committee, General Comment No. 15, “The position of aliens under the covenant” (Twenty-seventh
Session, 1986), UN Doc. HRI/GEN/1/Rev.1 at 18 (1994), para. 5.
117 UN Human Rights Committee, General Comment No. 19 (The Family), Protection of the Family, the Right to Marriage and
Equality of the Spouses (Thirty-ninth session, 1990), UN Doc HRI/GEN/1/Rev.6 at 149 (2003), para. 5.
45 HUMAN RIGHTS WATCH | MAY 2013