“Under the watchful eye of the Border Patrol,” hundreds of families separated by racist mass deportation policies briefly reunited at the Rio Grande this past Mother’s Day weekend, sobbing as they were allowed to embrace family members and loved ones, many of whom had been previously deported. “Some hadn't seen each other for years, some even decades”:
"There are no words to describe this moment," said Guerrero Hernandez, who lives between Dallas — where she has about a dozen siblings — and the El Paso-Juarez area, where many more family members live. "Touching their faces, hugging them, feeling family warmth. It filled me with so much joy and pain."
Border Network for Human Rights has organized five reunions in recent years, but this was the first #HugsNotWalls event under official policy that would brutally tear children from the arms of immigrant parents at the border. That fact was not lost of the hundreds who traveled to the U.S./Mexico border to reunite with their families and loved ones, making it a particularly bittersweet Mother’s Day weekend:
Sandra Gueta waited with hundreds of other families near the border and scanned the crowd on the other side in Mexico searching for her mother. “I don’t see her, but I know she’s here,” said Gueta, tears welling up in her eyes.
“They came all the way from Durango to see me for just a few minutes, but that’s better than nothing,” said Gueta. She had not seen her mother in Mexico for more than a decade.
Separated for more than a decade, but allowed to embrace for only three minutes. “This is an act of love, family, an act of dignity, a protest act," said Fernando Garcia, Border Network for Human Rights director. “Today, the border is the new Ellis Island. This is where hope starts. This is where the pursuit of happiness begins."
Mario Carrillo, a Texas director for immigrant rights group America’s Voice, was at the event along with his wife, who is a Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA) recipient. “300+ families will get three minutes to reunite with family members from across the border,” he tweeted. “It's a lovely event but damn, it shouldn't have to be this way”:
One attendee, Ivan Castaneda, was deported to Mexico just two weeks ago. It was the first time he had embraced his family since then. "Being alone again is not easy,” his wife Hilda Melissa Martinez said. “I need my husband and my children need their dad”:
"Why don't you come with us?" Castaneda's four-year-old son asked innocently, unaware of the trauma his parents have endured since their separation began a month ago.
“This Mother’s Day, I stand with immigrant women everywhere,” said Rep. Pramila Jayapal of Washington. “Keep their families together. Protect their kids. Give them the compassion and love that all of us would want for our moms, ourselves and our kids. Stop tearing families apart.”