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Christian Laporte, 19, plays with his brother Vladimir Fardin, 9. The brothers, who were traveling with U.S.-issued visas, were denied entry to the U.S. and separated by immigration officials at SFO after arriving on a flight from Mexico on Sunday.
(Courtesy of the Family)
Immigration authorities at San Francisco International Airport have taken a 9-year-old Haitian boy away from his brother, an East Bay college student, and sent him to a shelter for unaccompanied migrant children in Southern California.
The move came in the final hours of the Trump administration, which has been widely condemned for separating thousands of immigrant families over several years.
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.