Jose Alvizures is reunited with 10-year-old Ervin after nearly a year of separation.
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Three hundred and twenty-four days. That’s how long 10-year-old Ervin spent separated from his dad, Jose, after they were torn apart at the southern border under the Trump administration’s barbaric “zero tolerance” policy last May. Nearly a year after their separation, the asylum-seekers were reunited last week in Arkansas. “I will explain to you what happened,” Jose, in tears, tells the boy. “But thanks to God, we’re going to be together again.”
This separation never should have happened. They originally came to the U.S. last May, after fleeing threats against their lives in Guatemala. But in custody, federal immigration agents shoved papers at Jose and told him to sign them. “I explained I couldn’t speak or read English,” he tells CBS News. They were papers agreeing to his own deportation. Ervin was left behind.
“Ervin was in government care for five months before being released to an uncle in Arkansas. On Sunday, Alvizures finally flew there and reunited with his son, with the help of Al Otro Lado, a non-profit now working their asylum case. Ervin's family does not believe he was mistreated while detained, though they said he has nightmares. Ervin said each night, he and other children said a prayer—some would cry.”
Al Otro Lado has been helping a number of previously deported parents reunite with their children, but they represent just a portion of the hundreds of parents who were deported by the Trump administration without their children. That, in turn, could also be just a portion of the total families that have been separated at the border by the administration. That number is unknown.
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