100 Young Children Separated From Parents At Border Arrive In LA

LOS ANGELES, CA — Twenty-four hours after President Donald Trump signed an executive order that would supposedly halt the practice of separating children from their migrant parents at the southern border, about 100 children reached the Los Angeles area to be held in detention centers, foster homes or group homes. Most of the children are nine-years-old and younger, according to the Los Angeles Times.

Few have been reunited with family or friends of family. Authorities have not said what will become of the detained children, who were separated from their parents during Trump's s 6-week-old practice of splitting families that illegally cross into the United States. In all, about 2,300 children were taken from their parents.

Immigrant advocates told The Times that Trump's hard-line policy has taken a heavy toll on Los Angeles, home to a vast Central American population.

"Los Angeles is the epicenter of immigration," said Jorge-Mario Cabrera, spokesman for the Coalition for Humane Immigrant Rights of Los Angeles. "We object to the president's zero tolerance policy, not just because it's the right to do do, but because we suffer it in the flesh, more than any other urban center in the United States."

Cabrera said legislators in many other states supporting Trump's immigration policies don't know firsthand how their decisions trickle down in diverse centers like Los Angeles. Uproar over the family separations reached a fever-pitch this week, with protests spreading out across the Southland aimed at pressuring Republican lawmakers to stop the practice.

Related: Southland Republicans Targeted With Family Separation Protests

Since 2014, when thousands of children began crossing the border alone because of violence in home countries, Los Angeles County has remained one of the top regions to receive unaccompanied kids. In fiscal year 2017, sponsors countywide received nearly 3,000 children, more than any other county in the country.

"So many of these kids are ultimately L.A.'s kids," Lindsay Toczylowski, executive director of Immigrant Defenders Law Center, told The Times. "They belong to our families, to our communities."

City News Service and Patch Staffer Paige Austin; Photo: Shutterstock