Doris Diaz is worried about her 13-year-old daughter. She's currently living in Mexico with Diaz’s sister in an area that seems violent. 

"I get scared with my daughter," said Diaz. "I get so scared what I see in the news."

She said it’s just like what she fled in Honduras almost nine years ago, when she came to the U.S. illegally. She said she left her daughter with family because she was afraid to take such a young child with her across the border.

But now she lives on Staten Island, and the 29-year-old mother desperately wants to bring the girl to New York so they can finally be reunited.

Diaz had been thinking of asking her sister to take her daughter to the U.S. border. That way, the girl could approach Customs and Border Protection and ask for asylum, something thousands of other unaccompanied minors from Central America have done in the past few years. These children are typically held in detention and then released to sponsoring family members, while the government considers whether to deport them.

But the Trump administration has begun arresting those sponsoring relatives. Sarah Rodriguez, a spokeswoman for Immigration and Customs Enforcement, said the agency "aims to disrupt and dismantle" the pathways used by transnational criminal organizations and human smuggling facilitators.

"The risks associated with smuggling children into the U.S. present a constant humanitarian threat," Rodriguez added. "The sponsors who have placed children directly into harm’s way by entrusting them to violent criminal organizations will be held accountable for their role in these conspiracies.”

But families don't see it that way. "It's your children, you want your children here with you," said Diaz.

Immigration advocates are alarmed by the federal government's change in tactics in the past few weeks. It's not known how many relatives have been arrested, though a few cases have been reported nationally, including one in Newark.

The advocates agree that smuggling can be dangerous; some kids have died in transport. But they said the government should target smugglers instead of families.

Lenni Benson, a New York Law School professor, runs the Safe Passage Project, which represents unaccompanied minors who cross the border. Many are on Long Island. She said relatives looking to sponsor children in detention are now very nervous.

"People are saying, Don’t take phone calls from the federal government when they tell you a child is here," Benson said. If nobody claims a child, she added, what is supposed to be a temporary detention could drag on, prolonging family separation.

Rodriguez, of Immigration and Customs Enforcement, said the government will make "every effort to place a child with a verified relative or guardian in the event their parent is arrested."

Those who can't be released will be transferred to the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services Administration for Children and Families' Office of Refugee Resettlement.

But Lorilei Williams, who directs the immigration law project at Staten Island Legal Services, said children in detention, "may not have access to adequate legal representation for asylum." She also worried that as their deportation proceedings continue, "impatient judges may order their removal.”

The Office of Refugee Resettlement said it identifies and coordinates pro bono legal representation for children in limited services.

Doris Diaz is Williams' client and she, at least, has an alternative. She’s now a legal permanent resident with a green card — which means she can bring her daughter here legally by filing a family petition. But Williams said that could take up to two years.