3-Year-Old Asked To Pick Parent In Attempted Family Separation, Her Parents Say

[Demovictory9]

https://www.npr.org/2019/07/15/741721660/follow-up-what-happened-after-a-border-agent-asked-toddler-to-pick-a-parent?utm_campaign=storyshare&utm_source=twitter.com&utm_medium=social

At a Border Patrol holding facility in El Paso, Texas, an agent told a Honduran family that one parent would be sent to Mexico while the other parent and their three children could stay in the United States, according to the family. The agent turned to the couple's youngest daughter — 3-year-old Sofia, whom they call Sofi — and asked her to make a choice.

"The agent asked her who she wanted to go with, mom or dad," her mother, Tania, told NPR through an interpreter. "And the girl, because she is more attached to me, she said mom. But when they started to take [my husband] away, the girl started to cry. The officer said, 'You said [you want to go] with mom.' "

Tania and her husband, Joseph, said they spent parts of two days last week trying to prevent the Border Patrol from separating their family. They were aided by a doctor who had examined Sofi and pleaded with agents not to separate the family, Joseph and Tania said. [NPR is not using migrants' last names in this story because these are people who are in the middle of immigration proceedings.]


Tania and Joseph said they spent parts of two days last week trying to prevent the Border Patrol from separating their family.
Claire Harbage/NPR
Morning Edition reported last week on the Honduran family, who were sent back to Juárez, Mexico, after crossing into El Paso in April. They are part of a Trump administration program called Migrant Protection Protocols — also known as "remain in Mexico" — which requires thousands of Central American migrants to wait in dangerous cities in northern Mexico while their immigration cases are handled by U.S. courts.

[Laffy Kat]

1. That is heart-breaking.

Sadistic concentration camp stuff.

[KT2000]

2. name the agent

and fire him now. This is sick beyond belief.

[uponit7771]

8. +1

[TygrBright]

3. Sofi's choice? Oh, this one needs the full Hollywood treatment. n/t

[First Speaker]

10. That was my first thought...

...and the coincidence of the names makes it the more poignant. But Jesus--this kid if *three years old*. We're dealing with monsters...

[llmart]

12. That was the first thing that came to my mind also.

I remember watching the movie when it came out and how it affected me.

This is just plain evil.

[Pachamama]

4. There will be a reckoning for this nation for the cruelties being perpertrated by the US Govt on the

....children and their parents and the absolute cruelty.

[LuvNewcastle]

6. Yep, it's coming.

[Dem2theMax]

5. Hell cannot be hot enough for all of the people who so deserve to go there.

[FiveGoodMen]

7. Hell does not exist

WE punish them or NO ONE does.

[Dem2theMax]

11. Your opinion.

I am allowed to have mine.

[spanone]

9. Congress just gave the trump adm. 4.6 BILLION DOLLARS. anything happening with it????

who the fuck knows....