Hl-l HQ 889 Document 227 Filed 09/13/18 PagelD.3654 Page 1 Of 9 UNITED STATES DISTRICT COURT SOUTHERN DISTRICT OF CALIFORNIA MS. L, et al., Case No. 180v428 DMS MDD Petitioners?Plaintiffs, VS. U.S. IMMIGRATION AND CUSTOMS ENFORCEMENT, et al., Respondents?Defendants. DECLARATION OF JONATHAN WHITE I, Jonathan White, declare under penalty of perjury, pursuant to 28 U.S.C. 1746, that my testimony below is true and correct: 1. I am a Commander with the United States Public Health Service Commissioned Corps, and have served at the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) in three successive presidential administrations. I am presently assigned to the Of?ce of the Assistant Secretary for Preparedness and Response (ASPR), and previously served as the Deputy Director of the Of?ce of Refugee Resettlement (OR). 2. The following statements are based on my personal knowledge, information acquired by me in the course of performing my of?cial duties, ase Document 227 Filed 09/13/18 PagelD.3655 Page20f9 information supplied to me federal government employees and government records. 3. I have'been designated in this case as agency lead in the UAC Reunification Coordination Group for removed parents with minor children in ORR care. See Joint Status Report (Aug. 9, 2018) at pg. 3. A. Overview of Current Efforts to Support Contact with Removed Parents 4. In my experience, children in ORR residential care programs are generally able to contact their parents. The OR case manager is pivotal to this process. A case manager either works with the child to initiate a call to the parent in the home country, or receives a call from a parent and participates in discussions with the parent, in some cases other family members, and the child together. It is my experience that the case managers in OR shelters possess specialized expertise at establishing contact with parents in the home country, as this is integral to the individualized case management precess for the children with whom they work. 5. In this case, I have overseen efforts to ensure that contact information is being provided to the ACLU. This information has been used by our case managers to make contact with parents in nearly all cases. In some instances, the ACLU has indicated that the numbers were not working or they were unable to reach the parents at the number, and provided a list of the parents with 1 18cv428 DMS MDD \quam-BUJNl?l Ctase Document 227 Filed 09/13/18 PagelD.3656 PageBon problematic contact information to Defendants. In those instances, I directed ORR federal staff and grantee case managers to provide any additional contact information that has been help?il to them in maintaining contact with parents in home country. 6. Based on the reports that it is continuing to face challenges contacting some parents?including parents who ORR has contacted?I have further developed enhanced procedures, building on the existing interagency plan, to ensure the Government provides the ACLU Steering Committee with the best available information to contact parents and assists where appropriate to ensure contact occurs. This is based on the operational goal that we share with the ACLU that all parents be contacted so that we can receive information needed to effect reunifications consistent with parents? wishes. 7. Therefore, in future, where that the ACLU represents it is having dif?culty contacting parents, I have proposed a system of using the ORR grantee program case managers to broker three?way calls with parents, the case manager, and the ACLU. When the OR grantee case manager initiates a call with a parent, she or he can dial-in the ACLU at that time, or if the parent initiates a call, the OR grantee can dial?in the ACLU. After facilitating this connection, the case manager would be instructed to discontinue her or his participation in the call so that Plaintiffs and their Counsel can have an appropriately private conversation. 2 18cv428 DMS MDD Ciiase Document 227 Filed 09/13/18 PagelD.3657 Page4of9 8. In addition, the interagency coordination group consolidates information obtained by ICE personnel, including ICE attaches working in the parent?s country of origin. This, too, is provided to ACLU in response to queries about dif?cult-to-contact parents. B. Recommended Practices for Contacting Parents in Home Countries 9. Based on my own professional experience and that of colleagues who have worked in the OR UAC Program, the most expeditious and effective means to establish contact with parents in home country is telephonically. The standard ORR process includes contacting other relatives as needed to develop information on the parent to facilitate contact. 10. Contacting parents in home country is a highly specialized skill set. Many parents are appropriately apprehensive about speaking with strangers about their child who is in the U.S. This is particularly true in the Central American Northern Triangle, where there is extensive fraud and extortion of parents by individuals requesting funds to facilitate the child?s travel in the U.S. or the child?s continued safety. For this reason, ORR shelter case managers may likely be able, on the basis of their years of specialized experience working with this population, to engage some parents who may be reluctant to speak with others outside their country. These ORR social workers typically have built a 3 18cv428 DMS MDD Ease Document 227 Filed 09/13/18 PagelD.3658 Page50f9 relationship of trust and alliance with the child and the family. Therefore, parents also often return calls to OR shelter grantees. 11. I am aware also that Counsel have discussed other methods of establishing contact with parents in home country, such as radio announcements, billboards, and written notices in local churches in home country. In addition, the ACLU proposes using cell phones with home country telephone numbers to call from the United States parents in home countries. In my prior work at HHS, I have not seen those methods deployed effectively. Based on my experience, to have any chance of being effective, such methods would likely have to be targeted to the speci?c parent who remains unreachable. 12. For example, billboards are unlikely to be effective if they are deployed in areas where the parents are not known to have resided. Likewise, cell phones with home country telephone numbers are unlikely to be effective if the home country telephone numbers are associated with geographic areas where the parents are not known to have resided (as numbers associated with different home country areas might still raise fraud or extortion concerns for parents). 13. In my opinion, parental contact will be achieved more quickly?and governmental and private resources will be put to their best use?if the parties continue to focus on exhausting efforts to contact removed parents telephonically. If speci?c parents remain unreachable after such efforts are fully exhausted, then 4 18cv428 DMS MDD A \emqame?mNr?u :ase Document 227 Filed 09/13/18 PagelD.3659 Page6of9 the parties can make better informed, individualized determinations about what further steps, if any, can and should be undertaken to facilitate and maintain contact with the remaining removed parents. C. Overview of Coordinated Reuni?cation Efforts for Removed Parents 14. To facilitate safe reuni?cation of children with their parents in home country, the interagency operations group has established close contact with the governments of the cOuntries in which parents reside. 15. To that end, I have met in person and am in regular telephonic and email contact with senior of?cials at the Embassies of the governments of El Salvador, Guatemala, Honduras, and Mexico. In most cases, I am speaking to the Deputy Chief of Mission, the senior operational official for those foreign governments in the United States. We provide each foreign government lists, updated multiple times each week, of minors who have completed Process 3 in the government?s interagency plan approved by the Court, and advise them in advance of these children?s imminent return to home country. The foreign governments then identify any speci?c needs that the parents might have in regards to reuni?cation in home country, so that the interagency operations group can work with the foreign government to address those speci?c needs. In this ongoing consultation and collaboration with the foreign governments, we also work to identify any logistical barriers or constraints which would impede safe 5 18cv428 DMS MDD ?ase Document 227 Filed 09/13/18 PagelD.366O Page7of9 reuni?cation in home country and address them proactively, leveraging the capabilities of the governments for activities in their own territory. 16. ICE colleagues are coordinating in each child?s case with consular of?cials to obtain travel documents as well. The purpose of these engagements is to receive the assistance as needed of these governments in facilitating the parents? presence for physical reuni?cation at sites close to the airport, operated by those governments or trusted non-governmental organizations (NGOs). These reception sites are appropriate for family reuni?cation?and transfer of the minor to the care of his or her parentwbecause they are safe and help to streamline the complicated logistics of home country reuni?cation. This process utilizes the existing procedures developed between the governments of the four countries? and ICE attache's working in those countries?for the safe and orderly repatriation of children and families in the ordinary removal context (as opposed to the reuni?cation context of the Ms. L. case). 17. I am aware that the Plaintiffs? Steering Committee has asked the Government to ?designate an Ombudsman to work out of the US. Embassies/ Consulates in Guatemala and Honduras to assist with efforts to locate parents and repatriate children.? 18. I am not personally aware of the Plaintiffs? Steering Committee previously raising concerns about the operational effectiveness of the interagency 6 18cv428 DMS MDD A Ease Document227 Filed 09/13/18 PagelD.3661 Page80f9 operations group (as presently con?gured) in assisting with efforts to repatriate speci?c children and reunify them with their parents in their home countries. Indeed, most of the reuni?cations completed to date have occurred in the United States, and the smaller number of reuni?cations in home countries have, to my knowledge, been completed effectively. 19. Based on the information known to me at this time, my opinion is that the appointment of an Ombudsman would likely add another layer of complexity to the work of the interagency operations group, without remedying a speci?c, identi?ed operational problem related to repatriation of children and reuni?cation with parents in home country. If such Ombudsmen were appointed, they would have to be integrated into the existing partnerships between the United States Government and the governments of Guatemala and Honduras. As sovereign nations, Guatemala and Honduras already work with the parents who are their citizens on logistical and travel issues pursuant to their own laws. The integration of Ombudsmen could potentially disrupt those partnerships by infringing on the prerogatives of the governments of Guatemala and Honduras. At a minimum, it would necessitate structural changes to the existing, well?established operational relationships that would divert time and resources away from ongoing repatriation and reuni?cation efforts. 7 18cv428 DMS MDD Ease Document 227 Filed 09/13/18 PagelD.3662 Page90f9 A 20. My opinion is that the better approach for ensuring effective and swift reuni?cation in home country would be for the NGOs working with Plaintiffs? Steering Committee to communicate their speci?c operational concerns to the interagency operations group, so that we can partner with them (and with the governments of Guatemala and Honduras) to try to address the concerns. 21. I reserve the right to amend my opinions based on any new information that becomes known to me in the future. Executed on September 13, 2018. nathan Whitek/ 8 18cv428 DMS MDD