October 12, 2018 – This week, a Honduran immigrant, Mr. C., who was held in a New York detention center for five months, separated from and barred from communicating with his two-year-old son, was released from detention on bond. His release, secured after an administrative hearing in his immigration proceedings, comes just over a week after he, represented by the Center for Constitutional Rights, filed a federal lawsuit challenging his and his infant son’s detention and separation pursuant to the Trump administration's cruel "Zero Tolerance" policy targeting non-citizen families. The case asserts violations of Mr. C.'s and his son’s rights to pursue asylum protections, unconstitutional discrimination on the basis of race, ethnicity, and/or national origin, due process violations, and torture caused by the severe physical and mental suffering imposed by the detentions and separation.

Mr. C. was able to see his two-year-old son yesterday after being released from the Orange County Correctional Facility in Goshen, New York late Wednesday night. However, the son remains in a detention center in the Bronx, where he has been held while his father has been detained, and handed over to foster parents at night. The Office of Refugee Resettlement (ORR) has imposed a number of administrative hurdles that have kept Mr. C. from reclaiming full custody of his son. Attorneys are preparing an emergency motion to compel ORR officials to release the son back into Mr. C.’s custody.