US immigration policy separates children

Thousands of US-born children have been separated from their parents, who have been deported from the country by the US immigration enforcement, a new report says. According to the report by the US immigration and Customs Enforcement, in the first half of 2011 alone, nearly 46,500 parents of US-born children were forced to leave the country. Last fiscal year, 396,906 immigrants were removed from the United States under the US President Barack Obama, which set the record for deportations in one year by any American president. The extreme hardship that the US-born children of undocumented immigrants could face by losing their parent or moving abroad is rarely considered during the parent's deportation process. "This report is the latest example of the terrible human toll our broken immigration system is taking on families. Tearing families apart like this is inhumane and completely unacceptable,” chairman of the Congressional Hispanic Caucus, Charles Gonzalez said in a statement on Friday. "We can't continue to claim to value families while deporting parents in the tens of thousands. This must stop,” he added. In January 2012, more than 5,100 children were living in foster homes because their parents were detained or deported, according to a study released by the Applied Research Center. There were more than four million citizen children of undocumented immigrants living in the United States as of 2009, according to a 2010 report by Pew Hispanic Center.