Crackdown leaves teens to care for their siblings

Federal immigration operations are forcing children to step up after parents’ arrests.

- By Jack BROOK AND SARA CLINE

Vilma Cruz, a mother of two, had just arrived at her newly leased Louisiana home this week when federal agents surrounded her vehicle in the driveway.

She had just enough time to call her oldest son before they smashed the passenger window and detained her.

The 38-year-old Honduran house painter was swept up in an immigration crackdown that has largely targeted Kenner, a Latino enclave just outside New Orleans, where some parents at risk of deportation had rushed to arrange emergency custody plans for their children in case they were arrested.

Federal agents have made more than 250 arrests this month across southeast Louisiana, according to the Department of Homeland Security, the latest in a series of enforcement operations that have also unfolded in Los Angeles, Chicago and Charlotte, N.C. In some homes, the arrests have taken away parents who were caretakers and bread winners, leaving some teenagers to grow up fast and fill in at home for absent mothers and fathers.

Cruz’s detention forced her son, Jonathan Escalante, an 18-year-old U.S. citizen who recently finished high school, to care for his 9-year-old sister, who has a physical disability. Escalante is now trying to access his mother’s bank account, locate his sister’s medical records and doctors, and figure out how to pay bills in his mother’s name.

"Honestly, I'm not ready, having to take care of all of these responsibilities,” Escalante told the Associated Press. “But I'm willing to take them on if I have to. And I'm just praying that I get my mom back.”

Families made emergency plans

The crackdown dubbed “Catahoula Crunch” has a goal of 5,000 arrests. Homeland Security has said it is targeting violent offenders but has released few details on whom it is arresting. Records reviewed by AP found that the majority of those detained in the first two days of the effort had no criminal histories.