Attorney Nick Pesina is emphasizing the importance of remaining up-to-date on caregiver documents among mixed-status families.
TYLER, Texas — East Texas lawyers volunteered their time Sunday to help families with mixed immigration statuses fill out paperwork together that ensures a plan for their kids.
A mixed-status family is one where the children are born on U.S soil, and thus considered natural born U.S citizens, but that child’s parents are undocumented immigrants. In these families, the child holds citizenship while the parents don’t.
Amid concerns about the Trump administration’s efforts to crack down on illegal immigration. attorney Nick Pesina is emphasizing the important of remaining up-to-date on caregiver documents. These can ensure children are taken care of by a relative or capable guardian in the event that parents are deported and separated from their children.
“We cannot predict the future,” Pesina said. “We can’t know what’s going to happen. But the least we can do is give them peace of mind, that if they find themselves in these situations, that their children will be with a person of their choice that can make educational and medical decisions.”
At the clinic, Pesina was accompanied by other lawyers and experts and guided families through the process of filling out the forms provided by the state of Texas.
Pesina said they’re looking at hosting another one of these events in the coming months. Caregiver documents can be found on the Texas Department of Family and Protective Services website.