A young undocumented girl, who was ridiculed and made fun of by a border patrol officer for crying out for help after she was separated from her mother after setting foot near Harlingen, Texas, enjoyed her first day of school in the United States.
The bubbly kid wants to learn English, too.
On June 13, Alison Valencia, six, became the poster child of President Donald Trump’s ‘zero tolerance’ immigration policy, a program’s whose measures have been widely criticized for splitting thousands kids from parents that have entered the US illegally, thus creating a humanitarian crisis.
Under pressure, Trump then signed an executive order seven days, ending the separation of children from their parents at border entry points.
She had another fresh outtake on life earlier this week.
‘Today I was very sleepy when I awoke because only slept half the night,’ Valencia told Telemundo as she excited about taking on her first day of classes.
Alison Valencia and her mother Cindy Madrid meet with the media after their release from two immigration detention centers in Texas in July
‘What excites me the most is being able to return to school, have new classmates, make new friends.’
Valencia and her mother, Cindy Madrid, 29, made it across the Rio Grande River on a raft that was operated by a smuggler on what was the last step of a month-long trip trying to flee the violent streets of El Salvador.
For a six-year-old already looking forward to her first day of classes in a new world, she already had one challenging task – it was a must that she memorized her aunt’s phone number if she were to be separated from her mother by officials from the United States Customs and Border Protection agency.
Cindy Madrid and her daughter Alison Valencia arrived in the United States on June 13 and were immediately separated under President’s Trump ‘zero tolerance’ immigration policy
A Salvadoran mom and daughter share a heartfelt moment exactly a month after they were separated from each other and detained at different immigration detention facilities in Texas
An audio obtained by ProPublica caught the cruel moment when a Border Patrol agent joked in Spanish, ‘well, we have an orchestra here. What’s missing is a conductor,’ as a bevy of detained undocumented children are crying, screaming for their mommies and daddies.
Valencia frightened voice and all could be heard telling a consular worker that she had memorized her aunt’s phone number, that her mother had assured her that a simple call to her aunt would have her there ‘as quickly as possible’.
Eventually, Valencia was placed in contact with her aunt, and due to backlash that Trump’s White House received, the Salvadoran girl was reunited with her mother on July 13 before embarking on her own American dream during her first day of school.
‘It went well and I made a lot of buddies,’ Valencia said. ‘We ate a lot of things for lunch.’