Dora Melara travels to remote locations in Honduras, looking for clues in cases she never thought would take so long to resolve.
Sometimes the other people she’s not found for anywhere.
“There are places where you almost have to climb mountains to get there. And when you get there, they say, ‘He doesn’t live here anymore,'” says Melara, an attorney for the nonprofit Justice In Motion.
For years, Melara has been for parents separated from her children through the US government. As part of the Trump administration’s widely condemned efforts to deter migrant families from coming to the United States.
This “zero tolerance” policy ended in 2018 and had largely disappeared from headlines after provoking protests across the country that year, but a revelation in court documents this week draws public attention to politics and its consequences. they have not been able to succeed in the parents of 545 young people from separate families, and that many of the parents were probably deported without their children.
That’s an amazing statistic. But the scenario is too familiar to Melara and other advocates involved in a foreign effort to locate families and help them reunite that continues, despite pandemic restrictions that make it more difficult. Guatemala, Honduras, Mexico and El Salvador.
“It’s anything that still affects a lot of families,” Melara says, “until each and every parent is found, for me, it won’t be over. “
Even when she arrives in a remote village, only to be informed that there is a relative there, Melara says she does not see the case as a lost cause.
“We think about it,” he says, “like” now we’ve taken the first step. “
Melara has little data to provide when a search begins. In general, it begins with a child’s call, a parent’s call, and the parent’s last known position, data that advocates say are wrong or outdated.
When Melara arrives in a city, she will talk to the network leaders, hoping they can point the address to her.
When she discovers a family, she may be cautious at first, but Melara says talking to them face-to-face and hearing their stories brings them comfort and relief, and for parents who might have been suffering for months to succeed in their lives. young people and don’t know where to turn, Melara says it’s gratifying to see them reconnect with video calls.
“Some other people have told me . . . “We believe that what we had been through didn’t matter to anyone. “Then, when we arrived, somehow, the other people who think they had lost everything have a glimpse of hope,” he says.
The White House downplayed reports of unsustained parents, saying management has done everything possible to reunite families, even though the government has fought in court against efforts to identify and succeed in separate families through June 2018.
“The unfortunate fact is that many of them refused to accept their young people,” Undersecretary of the Press Brian Morgenstern told reporters on Wednesday.
Melara said some parents, he said, are satisfied that their children remain in the United States and thrive, but others desperately want to join them.
“We discovered other situations . . . We saw tears of joy and tears of sadness. There are parents who are in contact with their children. And there are parents who have no idea where they are,” Melara says.
Melara says she has also discovered who has already discovered her children, but still, she says, the scars of separation are obvious.
”We’ve noticed cases of parents who, when they separated from their children, communicated how the children were crying and saying, ‘Dad, don’t abandon me,’ and cases of mothers who have experienced mental trauma and are still being treated to recover. . The children say they have nightmares and wake up screaming at their parents’ names. “
Nan Schivone, legal director of Justice In Motion, estimates that nearly two dozen lawyers and advocates like Melara who run as a component of her organization’s “defense network” have been concerned about finding family members in the area. that long.
“The challenge here is that when Trump’s management separated families in July 2017, there was no plan to stay with or reunite families,” he said. “So here we are now, more than 3 years later, facing the consequences. “
Schivone says the 545 young people they belong to are likely to be in a variety of circumstances.
“They can be in the United States with a sponsor. They may be in the United States in foster care. They may have simply aged outside the foster care or sponsorship formula and have been somewhere, out of contact with their families. That’s the problem, total diversity of characteristics and possibilities,” he says.
“The task at this time is to verify to account for all the other people who have separated and to make sure that (parents) are in contact with their children and that they have the opportunity to meet. “
In 2018, a court-appointed guidance committee of volunteer lawyers and advocacy teams was able to track the maximum of the parents of more than 2,800 young people from separated families who were in government custody on June 26, 2018. Dana Sabraw ordered the government to avoid the maximum circle of family separations and to reunite all families that had been separated.
The committee renewed its efforts when a new organization of more than 1,000 young people joined the case last year following revelations that the government was separating families on July 1, 2017, months before it announced its debatable “zero tolerance” immigration policy.
The investigation had progressed, but his efforts stalled when the pandemic occurred.
“All sorts of standing and pausing, ” said Schivone.
Since August, he says, face-to-face search efforts have resumed on a case-by-case basis, and have been found more than family members.
“They’re doing masked studies, with face screens, to make the most of this terrible situation,” he says.
Melara told KQED in September that pandemic restrictions in Honduras, which restrict the days when other people may faint based on the most recent number of their government-issued ID cards, have made the search difficult.
“We are limited by the time we have to do our research, we can’t stay late, we can’t stay in a hotel. Because the next day, his ID card is no longer valid to deliver,” he told KQED. It’s very restrictive. “
But despite the difficulties, Melara told CNN that she had no doubt that it is vital to keep looking for parents.
And no matter how many dead end she is on the road, Melara says she’s made the decision to keep looking.
EEO Report ? Terms of Use Privacy Policy About us
Don’t sell my information