Their trip is part of a high-stakes plan hatched by immigration attorneys to reunify families divided by the family separation policy.
By Kevin Sieff , Kevin Sieff Latin America Correspondent Email Bio Follow Sarah Kinosian and Carolyn Van Houten Carolyn Van Houten Staff Photojournalist Email Bio Follow March 2 at 1:03 PM Twenty-nine parents from across Central America who were separated from their children by U.S. immigration agents last year returned to the U.S. border on Saturday, demanding asylum hearings that might allow them to reunite with their children.
More than 2,700 children were separated from their children along the border last year, according to the Department of Health and Human Services. About 430 of those were deported without their children, and at least 200 of them remain separated today. Some waited in the hope that U.S. courts would allow them to return to the United States. Others paid smugglers to get them back to the border. Then came Saturday's confrontation.
A woman explained through tears how her daughter had tried to kill herself while in government custody. A man spoke about trying to communicate with his daughter, who is deaf, over a shelter’s telephone. Others carried bags full of belated Christmas gifts for their children. Ottoniel and other parents converged at a three-story hotel in Tijuana, where lawyers told them to remain quiet about their plans. They rehearsed how they would address U.S. immigration officials. They watched telenovelas. At night, they called their children across the border.
There was Santos Canelas, 44, who said he fled Honduras with his 16-year-old daughter, Merin, in May after gang members threatened to sexually assault her. She is living in New Orleans with a cousin. “Without my daughter, I’m dead inside,” he said. Pablo Mejia Mancia, 53, from Honduras, was separated from his 10-year-old daughter, Monica, when they crossed the border in Reynosa, Mexico. Monica was detained for 3½ months.
[ACLU asks judge to order Trump administration to determine how many children were separated from their parents at border]
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