In the final hours of the Trump presidency, immigration officials detained a nine year-old Haitian boy with a valid US visa, separated him from his elder brother and incarcerated him, according to lawyers and activists. Vladimir Fardin arrived in San Francisco from Haiti on Sunday, on a tourist visa. He was travelling with his 19-year-old brother, Christian Laporte, who has been studying in Diablo Valley College outside San Francisco, and had a.
Vladimir Fardin
A 9-year-old Haitian boy could be separated from his older brother by immigration officers on Tuesday, according to their attorney, despite having visas to enter the US.
Milli Atkinson, legal director at the San Francisco Immigrant Legal Defense Collaborative, said the two brothers had been detained by US Customs and Border Protection (CBP) officers at San Francisco International Airport since Sunday afternoon.
Vladimir Fardin, 9, was planning on visiting California with his brother Christian Laporte, 19, who is a student at Diablo Valley College in the Bay Area. Fardin was traveling on a tourist visa and Laporte was entering the US on a student visa. However, CBP detained and took away their visas because Laporte was missing an I-20 form, which proves a student has been admitted to a school full-time and that they have sufficient money to stay in the US.
Haitian Brothers, 19 and 9, Detained and Separated By Immigration Authorities Despite Having Valid Visas
A day after the nation celebrated MLK Day, what was supposed to be an enjoyable trip to the U.S. for two Haitian brothers has turned into a nightmare. Nine-year-old Vladimir Fardin was separated from his older brother Christian Laporte, 19, by U.S. Customs and Border Protection. According to BuzzFeed, Laporte was deported to Mexico Tuesday. Fardin was turned over to ICE to be sent to a government-run shelter, according to an attorney familiar with case.
“Border Patrol and ICE separated the brothers in the middle of the night last night, despite multiple attempts by advocates to stop it. The nine year old year old was sent to a shelter. We don’t know where either is, because they refuse to tell the lawyer or family,” Francisco Ugarte, an immigration attorney in the San Francisco Public Defenders Office, tweeted.
Final Deportation Flight Heads to Haiti Before Biden’s Inauguration
Biden promised to halt the deportations of undocumented immigrants from Haiti who have been living and working in the U.S.
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The Trump administration sent its last deportation to Haiti the night before the inauguration of President-elect Joe Biden. The ICE deportation flight took off from Alexandria, Louisiana at 10 a.m. and was scheduled to arrive at 1 p.m. in Port-au-Prince. One person, Paul Pierrilus, was removed from the flight list last minute because he never lived in Haiti, according to immigration advocate Guerline Jozef. Pierrilus Has been fighting deportation attempts for 15 years. Biden promised to halt the deportations of undocumented immigrants from Haiti who have been living and working in the U.S. while he review’s President Donald Trump’s immigration pol