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Central American parents petition to be reunited with their children

Christine Stoddard | Catholic Herald

Imagine being separated from your child for months or years,
knowing they lived in a place with one of the highest
homicide rates in the world, while you lived thousands of
miles away.

Such is the plight of the 17 parents who gathered at 80 N.
Glebe Rd. the morning of July 8 to complete paperwork for the
Central American Minors Refugee/Parole program, a federal
program that began accepting applications in December 2014.
With the guidance of the diocesan Catholic Charities
Migration and Refugee Services, they were taking the first
step toward petitioning for their sons and daughters to come
to the United States under refugee status.

Though no dreams were fulfilled that morning, some were
broken. One woman, whose son was approaching his 22nd
birthday and was just now attempting to file the necessary
paperwork, discovered that she was already a year too late.
She left the orientation crying.

Managed by U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services, CAM
states a few firm requirements: Parents who petition for
their children must be in the United States legally; the
children must reside in El Salvador, Guatemala or Honduras
and be nationals of those countries; and the children must be
under the age of 21 at the time the paperwork is filed.
Though the children must be unmarried, if they have sons and
daughters of their own, if found eligible, their children may
come with them. But the firmest requirement is that the child
must be a refugee.

U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services defines refugees as
those “who have been persecuted or fear they will be
persecuted on account of race, religion, nationality and/or
membership in a particular social group or political
opinion.”

The U.S. Government performs DNA testing on each candidate to
ensure the parent and child are biologically related.
Sometimes fathers discover that children they raised as their
own are not their children, said Beth Fitzpatrick, volunteer
program coordinator.

While there is no deadline for filing for the program, it
benefits parents to file earlier rather than later.

So far, no applications that have gone through the diocesan
MRS office have been approved.

Stoddard can be reached at [email protected].

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