Across the country, lawyers and advocates are working with government officials to reunite parents and children separated at the U.S.-Mexico border. Over half of the children under the age of 5 were reunited this past week. Thousands more face a court-ordered deadline for reunification by the end of this month.
A father named Roger was separated from his four-year-old son at the border. They didn’t see each other again for five agonizing months. Roger – who asked that we not use his last name – spoke about the ordeal at a press conference, as he held his son tight in his lap.
He says he requested asylum at a U.S. port of entry. He was detained and his son was sent to a different facility. Roger says he was so desperate to speak with his child, he threatened suicide, taking a blade to his wrist to show authorities he was serious.
Pablo Ortiz was separated from his three-year-old. He says the boy is so young, he couldn’t really communicate by phone. The few times they talked, he mostly just said “papi” into the receiver.
Both fathers were reunited with their sons just before a court-ordered deadline, which compelled the government to reunify children under five with their parents. They were dropped off at Annunciation House, a migrant shelter in El Paso. Roger says he and his son were so happy to be together, they couldn’t sleep that night.
Annunciation House is one of many groups on the ground working hard to make those reunions happen.
Shalini Thomas volunteers with the Annunciation House legal team. “Our role is one of many advocates that these parents have to help navigates the process,” she says.
The team rented out an office space in downtown El Paso as a temporary command center. Thomas says the reunification process was poorly managed by the government.
“It’s a bureaucratic mess,” she says. “The more advocates [parents] have, especially if we’re all in communication with each other, the quicker this process is gonna be.”
Taylor Levy is the legal coordinator for Annunciation House. She says the first round of reunions, for children under five, was chaotic. Levy describes the last-minute hustle to book a flight for a three-year-old. There was lots of back and forth about who had to pay for her ticket. Annunciation House booked a flight through a donor.
“And also like this little girl, all the trauma she’s suffered in the first place, she was going to be transported – like escorted and guarded – by someone she already knew,” Levy says.
That guardian was supposed to be a staff member at the shelter where she’d been staying. Then the government agency in charge, the Office of Refugee Resettlement said it was going to pay, booked a different flight, and assigned someone else to escort her.
“So instead this three-year-old got picked up by a perfect stranger,” Levy says.
Amid frustrations like that, Levy and her team say they will do everything they can to speed up the process and set more reunions in motion.
