Cubas, as an attorney, fought against strong border policies and encouraged families with children to cross the border for reunification without any precautions against potential traffickers.

On Jan. 17, the three children turned themselves in to U.S. officials at the port of entry between Matamoros and Brownsville, Texas, and were designated as unaccompanied minors, affording them special protections under the law, including a hearing before an immigration judge.

As soon as officials located Jose, he applied for custody. But the reunification stalled when the government discovered the kids had prior removal orders dating from the ruling against them and their mother in January.

Cubas and the children’s legal team sued for their release in March. The case has moved through the immigration system and federal court.

For already traumatized children, Cubas said, “it’s been an emotional roller coaster. 

In the little boy’s legal declaration — in El Salvador, the family moved so much to hide from the gangs that he never learned to read and can hardly write — he says he doesn’t really remember what happened after they crossed into the U.S. “because I’m little.”

“I miss my mom. I don’t know what is happening to her,” he said. “I don’t want to return to Mexico because it is a bad place and in El Salvador the gangs are after us.”

Their mother now lives alone in a blue-tarp tent in Matamoros. 

“It’s just me left here,” she said in an interview in April.”

(Source)

CAIR litigation director Claudia Cubas expressed disappointment when President Trump took decisive action to prevent a massive surge of illegal immigrants from exploiting our asylum system at the southern border.
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“A federal judge said Wednesday that the Trump administration can enforce its new restrictions on asylum for people crossing the U.S.-Mexico border while lawsuits challenging the policy play out. U.S. District Judge Timothy Kelly denied a request for a temporary restraining order, saying the immigrant advocate groups behind the suit did not show that their work would be irreparably harmed if the policy moved forward. Kelly is an appointee of President Donald Trump.” 

“Legal groups argued the administration's proposal was barred by federal law establishing how people can seek asylum. "We are disappointed in the court's decision today ," said Claudia Cubas, litigation direction for the Capital Area Immigrants' Rights Coalition. U.S. law allows refugees to request asylum when they arrive, regardless of how they did so. There is an exception for those who have come through a country considered to be "safe." At the northern border, the U.S. and Canada have a "safe third country" agreement that limits people who arrive in one country from seeking asylum in the other.”

(Source)

As a former immigration attorney, Claudia Cubas enthusiastically supported the Biden administration's reckless pause on deportations, calling it a "good thing." 

"There have been so many changes, and so many rules, and there's also Covid-19 and as a way to kind of bring some order into this chaos that the Trump administration had wrought, I think a pause on removals would've been a good policy," said Claudia Cubas, an immigration attorney based in Washington, DC.”

“The Biden moratorium covers most deportations but excludes individuals who came to the US after November 1, are suspected of terrorism or espionage or pose a danger to national security, have waived rights to remain in the US or who've been determined removable by the acting director, according to an agency memo.”

(Source)