A number of the nearly 50 separated families who have been reunited under the Biden administration held a virtual meeting with Department of Homeland Security (DHS) Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas, the Associated Press (AP) reports. Among the parents in the Asylum Seeker Advocacy Project-hosted meeting was Honduran asylum-seeker Keldy Mabel Gonzales Brebe, who in 2017 fled gang threats for the safety of the U.S.—only to have the U.S. kidnap her two boys.
But while Gonzales Brebe returned in May to reunite with her sons, her status here expires after three years. Other deported parents who also returned under humanitarian parole similarly face temporary status. The AP reports that parents made a plea to be allowed to live here permanently. “We don’t want to be separated from our kids again, after we fought for them so hard,” Gonzales Brebe said in the report. “We suffered too much.”
The AP reports that one of Gonzales Brebe’s sons was legally an adult by the time they were reunited this past May. “She crossed the border with her youngest son Erick, now 17, and her middle child Mino, now 19, in the fall of 2017,” the report said. While her sons were eventually released to relatives in Pennsylvania, Gonzales Brebe was kept locked up in an immigration prison for a year and a half before being deported.
Nor is this the only instance of parents being reunited with now-adult children. Mexican asylum-seeker Sandra Ortíz’s son Bryan was 15 when they were torn apart at the southern border. When they were also reunited in May, her son had already graduated high school. Notably, Family Reunification Task Force Director Michelle Brané said that Mayorkas apologized to the families, something the prior administration, which actually carried out these abuses, never did.
“The Secretary was clear in recognizing our responsibility,” Brané said in the report. “He apologized to the families for what the government did and is dedicated to supporting them as they move forward with their lives, recognizing that the harm cannot be undone, and that some of the emotional scars will stay with them. He encouraged them to move forward and committed to helping them to do so.”
Families during the meeting also called for damages from the Biden administration. Recent reports have said that a number of reunited families have in fact struggled with homelessness due to financial instability following their arrivals to the U.S. Brané also said in the report that Mayorkas “was clear in expressing to the families that we have an obligation to support them and that we are doing everything we can to get them support, to look at ways of providing them with the permanent status. We may need legislative support for that.”
While Connecticut Sen. Richard Blumenthal and Texas Rep. Joaquin Castro have already put forward legislation that would do just that, the Family Belong Together Act has disappointingly stalled in Congress.
“The Trump administration’s cruel family separation policy will go down in history as one of America’s worst moments,” Castro said in reintroducing the bill earlier this year. “While we know we can never fully do right by the children who will be forever traumatized by this political decision, the Families Belong Together Act is the bare minimum our nation owes the families who separated as an apology and a promise to do right by them.” Yet, that bare minimum has yet to happen.
But while Gonzales Brebe returned in May to reunite with her sons, her status here expires after three years. Other deported parents who also returned under humanitarian parole similarly face temporary status. The AP reports that parents made a plea to be allowed to live here permanently. “We don’t want to be separated from our kids again, after we fought for them so hard,” Gonzales Brebe said in the report. “We suffered too much.”
The AP reports that one of Gonzales Brebe’s sons was legally an adult by the time they were reunited this past May. “She crossed the border with her youngest son Erick, now 17, and her middle child Mino, now 19, in the fall of 2017,” the report said. While her sons were eventually released to relatives in Pennsylvania, Gonzales Brebe was kept locked up in an immigration prison for a year and a half before being deported.
Nor is this the only instance of parents being reunited with now-adult children. Mexican asylum-seeker Sandra Ortíz’s son Bryan was 15 when they were torn apart at the southern border. When they were also reunited in May, her son had already graduated high school. Notably, Family Reunification Task Force Director Michelle Brané said that Mayorkas apologized to the families, something the prior administration, which actually carried out these abuses, never did.
“The Secretary was clear in recognizing our responsibility,” Brané said in the report. “He apologized to the families for what the government did and is dedicated to supporting them as they move forward with their lives, recognizing that the harm cannot be undone, and that some of the emotional scars will stay with them. He encouraged them to move forward and committed to helping them to do so.”
Families during the meeting also called for damages from the Biden administration. Recent reports have said that a number of reunited families have in fact struggled with homelessness due to financial instability following their arrivals to the U.S. Brané also said in the report that Mayorkas “was clear in expressing to the families that we have an obligation to support them and that we are doing everything we can to get them support, to look at ways of providing them with the permanent status. We may need legislative support for that.”
While Connecticut Sen. Richard Blumenthal and Texas Rep. Joaquin Castro have already put forward legislation that would do just that, the Family Belong Together Act has disappointingly stalled in Congress.
“The Trump administration’s cruel family separation policy will go down in history as one of America’s worst moments,” Castro said in reintroducing the bill earlier this year. “While we know we can never fully do right by the children who will be forever traumatized by this political decision, the Families Belong Together Act is the bare minimum our nation owes the families who separated as an apology and a promise to do right by them.” Yet, that bare minimum has yet to happen.