Photo: Illinois Department of Children and Family Services director Erwin McEwen (left) and Chicago Mexican Consul General Eduardo Arnal Palomera sign an agreement that requires the state notify the consulate when it becomes involved with Mexican families. (Heather Charles/ Chicago Tribune) Salvador Cicero remembers the case of a Mexican child who was allowed outside by his immigrant parents in the cold Chicago winter with no shoes.
The little boy fell ill, and state child protective workers intervened.
“But it wasn’t abuse and neglect,” said Cicero, a Chicago immigration attorney who represented the boy’s parents in custody fight with the Illinois Department of Children and Family Services years ago. “That’s a family that needs education about how to care for their children in a different climate.”
Cicero was the chief of legal affairs for the consulate in 2001 when Illinois became the first state to formally recognize a partnership between the consulate and the Department of Children and Family Services. In a joint effort to keep immigrant families in tact, DCFS Director Erwin McEwen and Consul General Eduardo Arnal extended the memorandum of understanding for 10 more years on Wednesday.
The memorandum of understanding was drafted to provide greater protections for immigrant parents following several custody battles between the state and Mexican citizens. It requires the DCFS to notify the consulate in child protection cases dealing with Mexicans and Mexican-Americans, who can then obtain legal assistance and support without fear of deportation.
“The point is, before this memorandum, we didn’t know (about those cases),” Arnal said after a signing ceremony at the consulate. “Now, we can know about those problems.”
Working with the consulate, DCFS guardian D. Jean Ortega-Piron said, allows more children to remain with their families. If a parent is deported, and their children wind up in the care of the state, DCFS will ask the consulate for help in finding relatives in the U.S. and abroad.
“Before, that wasn’t even an option,” Cicero said. “Things are vastly better than they were when I started.”
