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

[DonViejo]

Heard on Morning Edition

ROBERT MOORE

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.]

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At a hearing on Wednesday, the family's lawyer, Linda Rivas of Las Americas Immigrant Advocacy Center, asked that they be removed from MPP because of Sofi's heart condition. The couple has two other children, a 9-year-old daughter and a 6-year-old son.

Sofi's chest bears the scar of an earlier surgery. Rivas presented evidence from a Mexican health clinic that the 3-year-old girl had suffered a heart attack, a revelation that seemed to stun Immigration Judge Nathan Herbert. The judge said he didn't have the authority to remove the family from MPP but asked the Department of Homeland Security lawyer to take note of Rivas' concerns.

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https://www.npr.org/2019/07/15/741721660/follow-up-what-happened-after-a-border-agent-asked-toddler-to-pick-a-parent