Families trying to release children migrants from federal detention facilities face heavy fees in the hundreds and even thousands.
A Los Angeles construction worker named Marlon Parada told The New York Times he was asked to look after his cousin's 14-year-old daughter, Anyi, who was detained after attempting to cross the border with her mother. He was told she could not be released unless a family member agreed to care for her.
Parada, who supports his wife and three children and makes $3000 a month, was told he would have to pay $1,800 for plane tickets for Anyi and an escort to fly from Houston to Los Angeles.
"It caught me by surprise when they demanded all that money," Parada told the Times, adding he managed to raise the money with the help of his friends. "I asked them to just put her on a bus, but they wouldn't."
"The government is creating impossible barriers and penalizing poverty," Neha Desai, director of immigration at the National Center for Youth Law in Oakland, California, told the newspaper.
Although there was a payment requirement in place during the Obama administration, it was waived, and shelter operators were directed to pay for transportation and were subsequently reimbursed by the government.