Twelve-year-old Yeisvi was among the thousands of children stolen from parents at the southern border last year, but when a federal judge ordered the Trump administration to reunite these families, Yeisvi was not included because she was a U.S. citizen. Yeisvi would remain separated from her mom Vilma until January, when they got the news that they would finally be reunited. “It was a moment Vilma Carrillo feared would never come.”
While born in Georgia, Yeisvi had lived in Guatemala for just about her entire life, when the family was forced to return there to take care of her sick grandma. But in recent years, Yeisvi’s dad began abusing her mom, at one point knocking out some of her teeth. "It was just terrible physical violence,” her attorney Shana Tabak said, “at which point she decided to leave."
But at the border, Yeisvi and Vilma were terrorized, torn apart by federal immigration officials. Vilma was sent to a detention center in Georgia. Yeisvi could not be sent to a children’s detention facility, so she instead went to a foster home. The two remained separated following Judge Dana Sabraw’s June order, and at one point Vilma feared she might permanently lose Yeisvi to a forced adoption.
Earlier this month, they finally got the news that they would be reunited. “Immigration and Customs Enforcement had decided to release Vilma from custody and fly her to Phoenix to reunite with her daughter, 246 days after officials separated them at the border.” Yeisvi said that "I was sad because my mom wasn't with me. When it was Christmas, I cried."
While the two are now together again, they’re not completely in the clear. In August, a judge ordered Vilma’s deportation, which she continues to fight in order to ensure a safer life here in the U.S. “I’m here to fight for my life with my daughter, to keep going forward,” she said. “The only thing I want is to be happy with my daughter here.” But too many other families similarly torn apart at the border remain separated.
Monday, Jan. 28, marks 186 days past a federal judge’s reunification deadline, but children stolen from families at the southern border under the barbaric “zero tolerance” policy are still in U.S. custody, at risk of ongoing physical and emotional trauma. In a recent report from a government watchdog, investigators said that we may actually never know how many children were stolen from families. Family separation remains a crisis.