'Frightened' Congolese Girl Detained For Months In Chicago: ACLU

CHICAGO, IL — An immigration case is gaining headlines after the American Civil Liberties Union filed a lawsuit seeking to reunite a Congolese girl, 7, and her mother. According to the organization, the U.S. government unlawfully separated the girl from her mother after they came to California in November seeking asylum. The mother was held in a detention center in San Diego while the daughter was held in Chicago facility, the ACLU said.

The lawsuit, which names the mother "Ms. L" and the daughter "S.S.," claims the two were separated as part of a Trump administration "experiment" to separate border-crossing parents from their children as a way to scare others from seeking refuge in the U.S.

"No one explained to Ms. L. why they were taking her daughter away from her or where her daughter was going or even when she would next see her daughter," the ACLU stated in the lawsuit. "Seven-year-old S.S. sits all alone in a Chicago facility, frightened and traumatized, crying for her mother and not knowing when she will see her again."

The mother has been released from the detention center after growing media coverage of the case, according to a report by the Chicago Tribune. It's unclear when the two will be reunited, or if the mother has anywhere to live, according to the report.

“The Trump administration is using this little girl and her mother as pawns in its draconian public policy experiment,” said Lee Gelernt, deputy director of the ACLU’s Immigrants’ Rights Project in a press release. “Not only is it horrific to rip this child from her mother, there is no legal justification for it.”

Leading welfare organizations and medical professionals said such separations would have long-lasting consequences for children's health and well-being, the ACLU said.

"When the officers separated them, 'Ms. L' could hear her daughter in the next room frantically screaming that she wanted to remain with her mother," the ACLU said in the press release.

The U.S. Department of Homeland Security has declined to comment on the case; however, a spokesperson for the department said in a social media post that people should be skeptical of claims that children are being separated from their parents for reasons other than protecting the child.

The ACLU lawsuit cites violations of the due process clause in the Constitution, the federal law protecting asylum seekers and the government’s own directive to release asylum seekers.

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