A seven-year-old boy and his immigrant mother have been reunited more than a month after they were separated at the border after trekking from Guatemala.
Beata Mariana de Jesus Mejia-Mejia, 38, and her son Darwin embraced at around 2:30am on Friday morning at Baltimore-Washington International Airport in Maryland, hours after a Justice Department lawyer told a U.S. District Court judge the child would be released
She sued in federal court to get the youngster back and the Justice Department agreed to release him after she applied for political asylum.
Mejia-Mejia started crying and Darwin held back tears when they saw each other again.
She then told reporters she’s never going to be away from him again.
Beata Mariana de Jesus Mejia-Mejia is seen after being reunited with her seven-year-old son Darwin at the Baltimore airport early Friday morning
The first thing Mejia-Mejia did when she saw her son was wrap him in his blanket, which she has kept with her ever since they were separated
The mother and son were separated shortly after they crossed the U.S.-Mexico border more than a month ago
Mejia-Mejia sued the Trump Administration to get her son back. Before her court hearing Thursday, federal officials agreed to release the boy back to her
Little Darwin was quiet but appeared emotional as well. His lip quivered as he looked up at his mother.
She wrapped him in his blanket, which she has kept with her ever since they were ripped apart, and told him ‘I love you’ over and over again. Perhaps shy in front of all of the cameras, he didn’t say anything back, but held onto his mother’s hand as they walked to baggage claim.
Mejia-Mejia told the Washington Post that she could tell her son was upset.
‘Look at his face – he’s sad, but we’re going to be together, and no one’s going to separate us again,’ she said.
Mejia-Mejia and her son fled Guatemala to escape her abusive husband. Federal officials determined that her asylum request was legitimate
During their more than a month apart, Darwin was cared for somewhere in Phoenix, Arizona
The mother and son will travel to Austin, Texas, where Mejia-Mejia has been living
While Darwin was shy and didn’t speak much with his mother, he held onto her hand
Mejia-Mejia’s legal team, who accompanied her to the airport on Friday, said they would be broadening her lawsuit into a class-action lawsuit
When asked by the Baltimore Sun if she had a message for other mother’s separated from their children at the border, she said: ‘For them to fight for them … to keep fighting. We have to keep fighting to get our children back.’
The mother and son were to travel to Texas, where they will live while her asylum claim is being decided.
According to Mejia-Mejia’s lawsuit, she was never indicted for entering the country illegally, but authorities still wouldn’t tell her where her was was.
The lawsuit named six federal agencies and 10 senior officials.
Mejia-Mejia’s lawsuit was believed to be the first to challenge the government’s removal of a specific child from a parent in the course of upholding federal immigration law.
DailyMail.com broke the story about Mejia-Mejia’s lawsuit this week.
Through a Spanish translator in her newly adopted hometown of Austin, Texas, Mejia-Mejia told DailyMail.com that she’s not focused on the politics.
‘Right now my main focus is to get Darwin back in my arms,’ she said. ‘I am a mom, and mothers fight for their children. I hope my fight can help other moms avoid this horror in their lives.’
Mejia-Mejia learned that her son would be reunited with her earlier Thursday, just minutes before a federal court hearing.
‘All I want is to be with my son. I want to see him. I appreciate very much the attorneys and all of their help. I want to be with my son; I want to see him again,’ she told reporters after receiving the happy news.
The mother and son are seen in a picture provided to DailyMail.com this week
The trek Mejia-Mejia took with her son covered about 2,300 miles, roughly the distance from Boston to Phoenix
The Trump administration is under fire from all sides for separating more than 2,000 minors from their parents after they cross into the U.S. illegally
The decision was made a day after President Trump signed an executive order, ending the policy of separating children from their families at the border. But the executive order has left it unclear how the more than 2,300 kids who have been separated will be reunited with their families.
Mejia-Mejia’s lawyers have expressed intention to broaden her lawsuit to class-action lawsuit to help reunite other children taken from their families.
‘This child is not the only child,’ her attorney Mario Williams, of Nexus Derechos Humanos Attorneys, told CNN. ‘There’s thousands of children similarly situated we have to do something about.’
They said they will also be working with Mejia-Mejia and her son in the coming days, to determine whether he was drugged or treated poorly while in government custody, as some migrant minors have claimed.
Mejia-Mejia’s lawsuit also asked for damages for pain and suffering, so it’s unclear if the government will agree to an amount to avoid going to trial.
In the lawsuit, she describes a heart-wrenching scene when uniformed agents entered her holding cell and took away the boy, who screamed for his mother.
Mejia-Mejia and her son entered the U.S. near San Luis, Arizona on approximately May 19 and turned themselves in to U.S. Border Patrol agents ‘with the intention of seeking asylum,’ according to her attorney Mario Williams, because of spousal abuse at the hands of a violently alcoholic husband who she says threatened to kill her.
She says immigration officials took the boy after they spent two days in ‘la hielera’ – the ‘cooler.’
‘Men dressed in green uniforms (border agents) told Ms. M. they needed to take her son and would not tell her why. Ms. M. said “no” and demanded an explanation, but they would not tell her why they needed to take her seven-year-old son, and they took him anyway,’ the legal complaint reads, referring to Mejia-Mejia and her son only by their initials.
‘The border agents did not tell Ms. M. where they were taking her son,’ who was ‘screaming and crying.’
‘That was the last time Ms. M. saw her son,’ according to the lawsuit.
She ‘has not been given any paperwork to indicate where her son is or what his status or health condition is,’ it alleges.
Mejia-Mejia was permitted to post bond after she passed what the Justice Department calls a ‘credible fear’ interview, persuading immigration officials that deporting her back to her original home in Quetzaltenango, Guatemala would place her in physical danger.
After her release, Mejia-Mejia was permitted a single phone call with Darwin, whom agents would only tell her was somewhere in Phoenix.
‘Her son was crying and scared’ during the brief call, according to the lawsuit.
‘An official facilitating the call, who was with D.M., told Ms. M. that her son was “fine,” but Ms. M. could clearly hear her son saying “Mama! Mama! Mama!” in a distressed voice over and over and over again.’
The Trump administration is urging asylum-seekers to enter the U.S. at official ‘ports of entry.’ But Mike Donovan, CEO of Libre by Nexus – the Harrisonburg, Virginia firm that bailed her out for free – said Tuesday that she couldn’t possibly have known where to go.
‘She doesn’t have GPS. She didn’t have Google Maps,’ he said.
And after a journey of more than 2,300 miles – roughly the distance from Boston to Phoenix – she couldn’t possibly find a government-approved checkpoint.
‘This woman doesn’t understand where a “port of entry” is. She’s navigating three countries to get here. She doesn’t even know where the border is.’