| Abstract: In the spring of 2018, America watched in horror as nearly 3,000 children were separated from their parents on the southern border. Civil society groups have righteously and steadfastly responded to these harmful policies. What is often lost in the national conversation today is a deeper recognition that what has transpired at the border is just the tip of a very large iceberg. There are nearly 6 million American children in the country living with an undocumented parent. These families could be separated by deportation at any time. In 2019, UnidosUS published a report entitled, “Beyond the Border: Family Separation in the Trump Era.” It considers the consequences of a continued immigration policy status quo on these American children by looking at the intersection of immigration policy and health, education, and economic outcomes. The UnidosUS team has delved deeper into these issues including by examining the impact of the current immigration environment on K-12 student. We have also elevated these intersection in the press, including, in the context of a proposed housing policy change, in a New York Times Op-Ed by UnidosUS President and CEO, Janet Murguia. In short, UnidosUS believes that state-funded cruelty against immigrant communities imposes perhaps some of the steepest harms on American children, and that the nation is at a critical moment for action. |
 Carlos Guevara is the Associate Director for the UnidosUS Immigration Policy Project. Carlos leads UnidosUS’s immigration policy work, which focuses on advancing effective and humane federal immigration policies that promote and uphold family unity, protect workers’ rights, build on immigrant integration efforts, and improve the current immigration system. Headquartered in Washington, DC, UnidosUS is the largest national Hispanic civil rights and advocacy organization in the United States. Through its network of nearly 300 affiliated community-based organizations, UnidosUS reaches millions of Hispanics each year in 41 states, Puerto Rico, and the District of Columbia.
Prior to joining UnidosUS, Carlos was a Counselor in the Office of the Secretary at the U.S. Department of Homeland Security from 2014-2017. There, he worked on immigration policy issues under the Obama Administration. Before that, he served as a Staff Attorney at the Diocese of Grand Rapids, MI then Catholic Charities of Baltimore where he provided a wide range of Immigration Legal Services to low income immigrants.
Mr. Guevara earned his Juris Doctor from the University of Maryland Francis King Carey School of Law, and his bachelor’s degree from University of Virginia. He is a licensed attorney in Maryland. Carlos was born in Hermosillo, Mexico and grew up in San Antonio, Texas. |