Our Atlanta office is representing Vilma Viviana Carrillo Carrillo, a mother from Guatemala who has suffered severe domestic violence at the hands of her daughter’s father. She was separated from her daughter in May 2018 under the “zero tolerance” policy. She is currently detained in Georgia’s Irwin Detention Center. We need your help to reunify Vilma with her daughter.
While our client was detained at Irwin this summer, a federal judge ordered that all separated families be reunited by July 26, 2018. Vilma was transferred to Texas and detained at Port Isabel Detention Center, without knowing whether or not she would be reunited with her daughter. When ICE officials realized that because her daughter was a U.S. Citizen, she was not a member of the class action that ordered family reunification, they transferred her back to the Irwin Detention center in Georgia.
Vilma’s transfer to Texas also caused her to miss her asylum hearing before an immigration judge in Atlanta. At the rescheduled hearing, she had no attorney to submit an asylum application for her, and the interpreter did not speak Vilma’s indigenous language dialect. These circumstances unfairly resulted in a denial in her asylum case.
Tahirih is now representing Vilma in her appeal of her asylum denial to the Board of Immigration Appeals, however, we need Vilma to be released from detention so that she can retain her parental rights to her daughter, who is currently in foster care in Arizona. Because her mother is in detention, the courts have filed dependency proceedings against Vilma which may lead in the termination of her parental rights.
The state’s only reason for taking Vilma’s daughter is her current detention. ICE has refused our request to release Vilma despite knowing what’s at stake. Please help Vilma and her daughter reunify.
We are asking that you use Twitter to reach Kirstjen Nielsen, the Secretary for Homeland Security (@SecNielsen) and the Department of Homeland Security (@DHSgov) to ask that they release Vilma from detention.
Here is a sample Tweet that you can use:
Vilma Viviana Carrillo Carrillo, a mother and survivor of violence, has been detained in GA and separated from her daughter since May. ICE has refused release or reunification. #ReleaseVilma and reunify her with her daughter @SecNielsen @DHSgov https://buff.ly/2Oz14br
