ICE keeps kids detained because parents don't "wish to separate"
A federal judge has ordered ICE to seek the prompt release of all minors in its custody. The agency detains migrant families with children.
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Camilo Montoya-Galvez is an award-winning reporter covering immigration for CBS News, where his reporting is featured across multiple CBS News and Stations platforms, including the CBS News 24/7, CBSNews.com and CBS News Radio.
Montoya-Galvez also worked as part of CBS News' team of 2024 political campaign reporters.
Montoya-Galvez joined CBS News in 2018 and has reported hundreds of articles on immigration, the U.S. immigration policy, the contentious debate on the topic, and connected issues. He's landed exclusive stories and developed in-depth reports on the impact of significant policy changes. He's also extensively reported on the people affected by a complex immigration system.
Before joining CBS News, Montoya-Galvez spent over two years as an investigative unit producer and assignment desk editor at Telemundo's television station in New York City. His work at Telemundo earned three New York Emmy Awards.
Earlier, he was the founding editor of After the Final Whistle, an online bilingual publication featuring stories that highlight soccer's role in contemporary society.
He was born in Cali, Colombia's third-largest city, and raised in northern New Jersey.
He earned a bachelor's degree in media and journalism studies/Spanish from Rutgers University.
A federal judge has ordered ICE to seek the prompt release of all minors in its custody. The agency detains migrant families with children.
"My heart still hurts. I can't sleep at night because I'm desperate," said the sister of an ICE detainee who died of coronavirus complications.
More than 20,000 migrants, including unaccompanied children, have been expelled from the southern border under the emergency directive.
At least 788 immigrants in ICE custody have tested positive for coronavirus across the country.
More than 90% of the families, children and single adults that Border Patrol encountered in April were expelled under a public health order.
In the last 11 days of March alone, officials expelled at least 299 unaccompanied children under a CDC public health order.
It is the ninth time since a national emergency was declared that staff at detention centers used pepper spray on protesting ICE detainees.
"We leave our families, fleeing our home countries to try to save our lives. And then we come here and die while imprisoned," one asylum-seeker told CBS News.
At least 99 of Guatemala's 500 COVID-19 cases are among deportees. Experts fear U.S. continuing its policy could overwhelm Guatemala's small public health system.
The judge ordered officials to promptly release children with sponsors from immigrant detention facilities, where the coronavirus has spread in recent weeks.
Some 52,000 would-be immigrants could lose the opportunity to move to the U.S. over the next two months under the order, according to one estimate.
"There's fear among all of us," Marco, a Cuban asylum-seeker detained in Louisiana, told CBS News.
The president said the move is necessary to protect American workers reeling from an economy battered by the coronavirus pandemic.
U.S. Judge Jesus Bernal required ICE to consider releasing immigrants over 55, pregnant women and detainees with chronic health conditions
There are growing concerns about the U.S. sending infected deportees to the Central American country, which only has 214 confirmed cases.