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Nine-year-old Byron is now free from U.S. custody after nearly a year, but this is far from a happy ending. The boy had been in custody after he was forcibly separated from his dad David at the southern border last May, when they fled gang threats in Guatemala. David was forced to sign deportation papers despite having an asylum claim, and was told he’d be separated from his son unless he did. They took his son anyway and then deported David on his own, leaving Byron here, completely alone.
Byron had already been in U.S. custody for months when a Texas couple, Holly and Matthew Sewell, volunteered to sponsor him. They got support from his parents in Guatemala, but were then blocked from doing it by the federal government. The Office of Refugee Resettlement, NBC News reports, “requires that children be released to parents or legal guardians, immediate relatives or other adults who must be family friends or who had a relationship with the family before the child came to the United States.” There appear to be no exceptions for when the child is alone specifically because the government deported their parent in the first place.
Byron remained detained despite having willing sponsors—he even spent his birthday in custody—and in March was reportedly being moved to a fifth location when a judge intervened, “citing a child psychiatrist who said moving the boy again could amount to ‘yet another damaging, frightening and discouraging trauma.’” NBC News reports that “the Sewells had kept in touch with Byron’s parents through video chat, phone calls and apps and had their permission to foster Byron. They refused to give up and turned to a lawyer who filed a challenge on their behalf. A judge initially refused, but over the weekend the Sewells got news of Byron's release.”
“We laughed and cried," Holly Sewell said. "We were just so relieved that he would finally be released.” The family says they will seek counseling for Byron, but he also faces challenges when it comes to everyday communication. Byron speaks K’iche’, an indigenous language, and had to learn some Spanish while he was in custody. “Sewell said she’s using Duolingo and Babbel to learn more Spanish and her husband speaks Spanish, too,” NBC News reported. “She also uses Google Translate so she and Byron can communicate.”
While Byron’s release is the first step toward his healing, what’s unclear is his future, and his family’s future. Will he get a chance to stay here in the U.S.? Will he ever see his dad and family again? Or will Byron be, as the federal judge in the family reunification lawsuit said earlier this year, a “permanently orphaned child”? That judge, in a related matter, has also ordered the administration to identify potentially thousands of other kids who have also been separated from their families. Family separation remains a crisis.