The Trump administration has taken no action to reunite the more than 2,000 migrant kids who have been torn from parents at the U.S./Mexico border in the past weeks, and for several of the scant few who have been reunited, it’s only been due to legal action. That includes Lidia Souza and her 9-year-old son Diogo, reunited in Chicago this week by a federal judge:
Diogo’s eyes were downcast when he recalled his weeks spent at the shelter. “I cried almost every day I wasn’t with my mother,” he said.
Lidia and Diogo, asylum seekers from Brazil, got to spend only one night together after crossing the border last month before they were separated. Lidia was charged with illegal entry, while Diogo was sent to a facility in Chicago. The boy, according to the New York Times, was despondent, begging for his mom during “tear-filled calls.” He spent his ninth birthday in custody. Lidia, who had been released to friends in Massachusetts, sued.
Lidia got her good news this week, but not before the Department of Justice (DOJ) tried to stall their reunification, claiming “the government was compelled to ensure that all of the adults in the household where he will be staying have been fingerprinted.” Lidia’s attorney pushed back, saying it meant the distraught boy would spend another month separated. Judge Manish Shah was having none of it and ordered his release. “To keep the two separated ‘irreparably harms them both,’ he wrote.” Meanwhile, Lidia is continuing to work on her asylum claim.
Another judge, George W. Bush appointee Dana Sabraw, has ordered the government to reunite separated kids within 30 days but to date the administration has released no plans on how this process will work. Children, Lidia said in her direct appeal to Donald Trump, “shouldn’t be involved in this. They don’t deserve to go through this suffering.” To parents, she said, "don't give up, be persistent."
We must also persist for them. Please attend an event near you on Saturday, June 30 to protest Trump's barbaric policy that has separated over 2,000 children from their parents & locked them in cages.