In Austin, Texas, an 18-month-old toddler is sitting in an immigration detention facility. He’s probably crying, with only strangers in a strange place to comfort him. He doesn’t want the strangers, though. He wants his mother, but his mother is herself detained, in another facility 120 miles away. They were torn apart by brutal tactics of Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE):
Fleeing government violence in Honduras, Mirian came to the U.S. with her young son on Feb. 20, 2018, presenting herself to immigration authorities and asking for asylum. During her interview, Mirian gave the immigration officers her Honduran ID card and several identification documents for her child, including his birth certificate and his hospital birth record, both of which list her as his mother.
However, once the interview was over, the officers said that they were going to take her son away from her. She repeatedly asked why they couldn’t stay together, but she was not given a reason. The officers then made her carry her 18-month-old child outside where a government car was waiting. As she placed him in the car seat, he began to cry. Without giving her a moment to comfort him or say goodbye, the officers shut the door and drove away.
It’s now been two months since that terrible day, and Mirian and her child are still separated. “They are just one of hundreds of families who are subjected to ICE’s brutal tactic of forcibly separating immigrant parents and children,” the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) writes, “and on whose behalf the ACLU has brought a national class-action lawsuit.”