Keeping the children and deporting the parents?

We have a case here in Iowa involving a hispanic family. The parents entered our country illegally and proceeded to build a life. They rent a home, hold jobs and have four children (who are citizens and have known no other home).

I guess a few years ago the couple hired an attorney to help them become documented. The attorney messed something up and now they are facing deportation after the first of the year. The children are torn between leaving with their parents or staying here (being placed in the foster system?)

I was under the impression that if a child was born an American citizen, that the parents were able to stay here because of the child. Does anyone know if there was legislation passed which changed this? (Or if my entire assumption is incorrect?)

I can't tell you what legislation it was, but it wasn't just one bill. Over the last decade, the ability of INS to deport the parents of american citizens has increased dramatically. In my office, we do some of this, and we once had a case where the widowed mother of an HIV+ family was going to be deported back to a country which had no AIDS treatment capacity, essentially dooming the children, who also were HIV+, to be AIDS orphans.

When I was a social worker ('93 to 2000), they never deported the parents of American citizens (kids born here).

And I could even get emergency paperwork for Grandma to stay if Mom and Dad went to jail, and I needed her to be able to stay here and care for them.

People that deport these parents are monsters, as far as I'm concerned. And they certainly aren't doing in my name! Sick!