I want to share this case with you, because I personally found it quite interesting. This is not a case that I have handled, but one that I heard about from Fox news Latino. The case involves a Mexican national who was previously ordered deported from the U.S. He has three children here in the U.S.
The Mexican national, Mr. Felipe Montes, was given legal permission to return to the U.S. so that he can physically appear for his court battle in North Carolina regarding fighting for custody of his three (3) biological children. Mr. Montes received permission to remain in the U.S. for ninety (90) days, based on Humanitarian grounds.
This case is interesting because it is the U.S. Department of Homeland Security that allowed him to re-enter the U.S. This case hopefully will give hope to people in similar situations to apply for Humanitarian permission to temporarily enter the U.S. Of course, a grant of humanitarian parole is in the discretion of the Officer.
In Mr. Montes’ case, he has three U.S. citizen children with his U.S. citizen wife, and his wife remained in the U.S. while he was deported back in 2010. Unfortunately, his wife could not take care of those kids and the kids were placed in foster care where they were about to be adopted by foster families. Mr. Montes was the primary bread winner, and when he was deported, his wife would not financially support the children.
Thankfully, Mr. Montes was allowed to re-enter the U.S. so that he could fight for custody of his biological children, and according to his family law attorney, his presence was desperately needed at the hearing.
This case points to the reality that there are about 5,000 children of deported or detained immigrants currently being placed in foster homes, mainly due to the parents’ not having the appropriate immigration status to remain in the U.S.