Border agents reportedly threatened to separate a Honduran woman from her newborn infant and send the mother to wait out her asylum case in Mexico alone under inhumane Trump policy. That is until blowback from advocates over the weekend forced officials to back down, The San Diego Union-Tribune reports.
Her attorney told Union-Tribune that the 19-year-old had just given birth at a California hospital after turning herself in at the border last week when she asked Customs and Border Protection agents when they might be freed. That’s when she was informed she would possibly be kicked out of the U.S. under the Remain in Mexico policy while her infant, who was born with complications and was immediately sent to the intensive care unit, would stay here.
“Family members frantically called attorneys with Al Otro Lado, a pro-migrant legal services nonprofit, over the weekend claiming Border Patrol agents told the mother they planned to place her newborn child in the custody of Child Protective Services and then return her to Mexico without her baby. Other sources from within the hospital were also communicating with the San Diego Union-Tribune that Border Patrol agents said they planned to separate the mother and the newborn baby.”
Border agents also reportedly worked against the mother and newborn child by blocking access to them for some time. “Although our attorneys arrived at the hospital on Sunday morning,” Al Otro Lado’s Erika Pinheiro told Union-Tribune, “CBP did not allow us to communicate with her until Monday afternoon, at which point she confirmed an agent had threatened her with separation.”
A CBP spokesperson told Union-Tribune that “the mother and newborn were never separated by CBP,” and sure, that’s only true because advocates forced a stop to it. But what border officials refused to answer is whether this family was threatened with state-sanctioned kidnapping, and this is telling, because if they hadn’t, they’d at least bother say it, but it appears they won’t.
Al Otro Lado confirmed in a statement that the family will now get to pursue an asylum case together here in the U.S.—and it’s due to pressure forcing border officials to back down from their threat. “We believe that had it not been for initial media reporting on this and the resulting public outcry, this story would have resulted in yet another devastating family separation,” the organization said.
And another Remain in Mexico tragedy. Family separation has been a humanitarian disaster but so has this second policy, which despite its official name of “Migrant Protection Protocols,” does none of the sort. Instead, hundreds of asylum-seekers have been victims of violent crime after being forcibly returned to Mexico. This family has thankfully been spared this horror. But how many more are going to keep suffering at the hands of this administration?