They live as a family in a modest apartment, on the ground floor of a small brick building, in the suburbs of a northeastern American metropolis. Religious paintings adorn the walls, accompanied by a photograph of the four sisters, a few years old. The young women's high school diplomas are proudly displayed. “I missed a crucial period in their development,” observes Juana*, whose voice quickly becomes trembling.
This mother from Honduras was separated from her four daughters in the spring of 2018, while they crossed the southern border of the United States together. She was 36 years old; the youngest of his children, 7 years old. Casandra* and her sisters joined their father, already settled in the northeast of the United States. At the same time, Juana was detained and then returned to a country whose violence she was fleeing. For three years, she was forced to live thousands of miles from her daughters.
Like them, at least 4,500 families were separated at the border under the presidency of Donald Trump. The result of a policy aimed at imprisoning and then deporting adults who entered the United States illegally, while accompanying minors were sent to centers, then placed with relatives or foster families. A choice claimed by the Republican administration as a way of deterring arrivals. Juana was able to reunite with her daughters, but more than a thousand children remain separated from their parents, according to the working group responsible for reuniting them. The presidential campaign, largely focused on immigration and marked by xenophobic words, plunged these families back into uncertainty.
Montserrat*, the eldest daughters of Juana, lives today with her husband and will soon be a mother. Abril* has entered her twenties and Julieta* is approaching it. The last, Casandra, with long false eyelashes behind her rectangular glasses, is a teenager now. She has no memory of her 7 years, of the exile, nor of the trauma that followed.
Their mother, on the contrary, remembers precisely this day in May 2018, the day after their arrival in Texas. Upon entering American soil, they presented themselves to the authorities. In the center in which they slept, “l’agent [du service des douanes] said we were going to be separated”, Juana says, looking at her hands. “He told me to hold my daughters one last time. My oldest daughter told me everything would be okay, to stay strong.”
“My little girl wouldn't let go of my hand. 'Enough,' the officer told me.”
Juana, mother separated from her four daughters at the borderat franceinfo
Montserrat holds his mother's hand. “Other children were separated from their parents around us”she intervenes in a discreet voice. Big sister instinct took over: “I didn’t want to collapse.” The sisters contact lawyers, hoping to free their mother. But Juana is placed in a Texas detention center known for lacking legal aid services. “It was again extremely traumatic for her,” points out Kayleen Hartman, director of the “family separation” unit at Kids in Need of Defense (Kind), an organization that helped the family.
At the beginning of October, Juana was expelled, alone, to the country in which she suffered the threats and violence that pushed her, with her children, onto the road to exile. Honduras is “one of the most violent countries in the world”, and its homicide rate is among the highest in Latin America, underlines Human Rights Watch.
To CNN, which followed her upon her return to her country, Juana tells that she limits her travel out of caution, with the exception of mass each week. A family ritual that she learns to perpetuate alone. “Before we left Honduras, we were always together. The girls helped in their grandmother's business,” remembers the mother. From a distance, she feels left out of her daughters' new habits, only being able to follow them on the phone. Birthdays are celebrated without her. “I didn’t see Casandra grow up.”
In the American apartment, Montserrat takes care, with her father, her little sisters, she who is not yet an adult. “I was 16. It wasn’t easy to sort of become a mother at that point,” underlines the young woman. Without Juana, the teenager cooks for the family, among other domestic chores. “When Casandra got her first period, she locked herself in the bathroom. I didn't know how to deal with that. I needed my mother, and my sisters too.”
“It was very difficult to take on this role. Casandra cried every night, she asked for her mother. She was very sad, in distress.”
Montserrat, Juana's eldest daughterat franceinfo
More than two years pass without prospect of reunion. Between the United States and Latin America, lawyers and organizations are working hard to find deported parents and reunite them with their children. When Joe Biden came to power in early 2021, the new administration tasked a working group with this mission, and offered the migrants concerned the right to return to the United States and temporary protection on the territory.
More “the lack of data and solid records of separated families has made this reunification work particularly difficult,” points out Jason Boyd, vice president for federal policies at Kind. In three years, the mission brought together nearly 800 families, but it found no way to contact the parents of nearly 500 children, according to its latest report. Other obstacles persist, such as the cost of travel and security, when it is sometimes necessary to cross dangerous areas to obtain official documents.
While Kind defends her daughters on American territory, Juana is supported in her efforts in Honduras by the Al Otro Lado organization. It is she who covers the costs of the trip to the United States when, at the end of spring 2021, the mother receives the good news she had been hoping for for three years. “When I was on the way, thoughts invaded me. I wondered how the girls would react,” Juana remembers. Arriving at the airport, she hears one of her daughters screaming “Here’s Mom!” a bouquet of flowers in his hand. This day is “unforgettable”, a moment “very happy” : “There were a lot of tears, but tears of joy.”
Juana now works in construction. Family habits resumed, mass on weekends, occasional trips to the beach, birthdays… Montserrat had promised her mother that she would not get married without her by her side. “I cried for a week when it happened!” smiled Juana, very moved.
However, the relationships between mother and daughters have changed. “With the distance, she and I have become different people,” comments Montserrat. The young woman is careful not to confide certain problems, for fear that her mother will worry. “Communication has changed as the girls have grown up,” agrees Juana. “I no longer have the same authority. Things can no longer be the same as before.”
The family struggles to put words to their trauma, as it remains so vivid. “It was extremely hard,” Julieta slips briefly, her eyes and face reddening. Words supported by his mother, with a lump in her throat: “It hurts me a lot.” “You can see their physical reaction to the mere mention of separation,” observes Gabriela Brito, Kind’s lawyer defending Juana’s children. “It’s something that’s going to affect them for the rest of their lives.”
Legal protections are temporary. At this stage, Juana can still stay and work for three years in the United States, and does not know what her future will be beyond. A few days before the presidential election, she confides “a general feeling of fear” regarding the future: “I'm afraid I won't be able to continue working. I'm afraid the same thing will happen again.”
*The first names have been changed at the request of the interested parties, to ensure their anonymity and security.
