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Nearly a year after their forcible separation by federal immigration officials, Elmer and his daughter Marisol are together again. The asylum-seeker was one of the 29 parents who returned to the U.S in March, after being unjustly deported, without their kids, by the Trump administration. Elmer was deported back to Honduras in July, while 15-year-old Marisol was left in a children’s detention facility.
Their separation ended following Elmer’s release from detention, and last week he flew to Wisconsin, where the girl has been living with relatives following her own release. “Marisol is kind of hesitant when she first walks into the airport, unsure where she should go,” NPR reported. “And then—she spots him down the hallway. She starts running, then stops, then runs again. Her little cousin tails behind her. Marisol jumps into Elmer's arms, and he spins her around.”
"I missed you so much," he tells her. "You, too," she replies. Elmer had been unsure this moment was ever going to happen, after he’d been forced by officials to sign papers he didn’t understand last summer. They were documents agreeing to his deportation, and he hasn’t been the only parent to be forced to do this. Now back in the U.S., the relieved dad tells Marisol, "We did it. I can't believe it. I can't believe I'm here."
Marisol was worried, too. ”Sometimes I'd be in school, and I'd get all stressed out wondering where he was, how he was, all that,” she said. “When he was detained, I was really worried he'd get deported again." Now back together again, Elmer just wants to enjoy the little things he’s missed out on since last year. "Dropping her off at school, it's wonderful,” he said. “You'll never know how happy it makes me."
Other parents from the now-released group of 29 have also been reunited with their kids, thanks to the advocacy of groups like Al Otro Lado, Together Rising, and Families Belong Together, yet others continue to remain separated. The administration has even claimed it could take up to two years to identify families that were separated before the official “zero tolerance” policy. Family separation remains a crisis.