Sign the petition to release Hamid, our client who is a 17-year-old Afghan child who has been detained in adult ICE detention for 5 months!
Last week, Democracy Now! covered the story of our client Hamid, who is a 17-year-old Afghan child that has been detained in adult ICE detention for 5 months now. Hamid was initially designated a minor when he arrived at the U.S. border in late 2017, after he walked up to immigration officers and asked for asylum. Hamid was placed in the custody of the Office of Refugee Resettlement (ORR) -- the agency that handles the care and custody of unaccompanied migrant children -- and lived in a state-licensed group home for other migrant children his own age. Several weeks into Hamid's stay, ORR sent x-rays of Hamid's teeth to Dr. David Senn at the University of Texas to try to determine his age. Dr. Senn never examined Hamid in person and only relied on his dental x-rays to estimate Hamid's age range between 16 and 23 years old, a seven-year span.
Based on Dr. Senn's faulty dental exam, Hamid was then transferred from ORR custody to adult ICE detention in Bakersfield, CA, where he has been detained for the last 5 months. Meanwhile, Hamid has a family friend in Texas who has offered to support Hamid with housing and financial support, if Hamid is released from ICE custody. Hamid's attorneys have submitted a third parole request to ICE based on additional evidence of support for Hamid's release, but ICE has still not made a decision on the request. Each day that goes by is one more day that Hamid, a minor, sits in adult detention.
Sign the petition to release Hamid!