Parents Deported Without Their Kids Seeking Reunification

Updated Sunday at 1 pm

U.S. Customs and Border Protection took 28 families into custody Saturday night who are seeking to be reunified with children, according to immigration attorneys.

Dozens of immigrant parents whose children were taken from them at the border last year showed up en masse at the U.S.-Mexico border on Saturday seeking to re-enter the country.

Attorneys for the 28 families say all of the parents who presented themselves at the Calexico West Port of Entry have a legal right to be reunited with their children under a federal class-action settlement.

On June 26, 2018, U.S. District Judge Dana Sabraw ordered the Trump Administration to stop separating migrant families and reunite roughly 2,800 kids in U.S. custody with their parents.

At the time, government officials told the court that more than 400 mothers and fathers had already been deported without their children.

Immigration officials gave the parents two choices: have their children returned to them in their home countries or leave them in the U.S. to pursue an asylum claim on their own.

“Parents were becoming increasingly desperate,” said Erika Pinheiro, an immigration attorney with the non-profit Al Otro Lado who accompanied the families to submit their asylum claims.

The government also agreed to consider letting the parents back into the US to be with their children.  Pinheiro says parents who asked to return submitted those requests on December 15.

“The government had 30 days to respond,” she said. “Then there was a government shutdown.”

In a text message Sunday, Pinheiro said CBP officers initially said they "had no capacity" to process the families' claims, but later in the day took physical custody of their applications for asylum and admitted all of them into CBP custody by 8 pm Saturday.

Many of the parents are traveling with their other children, including a 3-month-old, because they did not want to be separated again.

One father from Honduras — who asked to be referred to as Mr. M because he feared for his family’s safety — traveled to the U.S. in April 2018 with his teenage son. After they crossed the Rio Grande from Reynoso, Mexico to Texas, they were taken into custody.

Mr. M said when immigration officials threatened to take him away from his son, the boy cried, “‘Daddy, don’t leave me!’”

“He grabbed onto me,” Mr. M. said. “He held on tight. And I held onto him too.”

They were separated and Mr. M was not told the whereabouts of his son.

At first, Mr. M refused to sign a voluntary departure order but eventually relented. When he returned to Honduras with the news, he said the boy’s mother became inconsolable.

His mother "would cry every day and she wasn’t eating anymore,” said Mr. M, choking back tears. “Since I was stronger, I had to go back.”

Mr. M's son was eventually released from government custody to relatives in the U.S.

Max Rivlin-Nadler and Vianey Contreras contributed to this story.