Beata Mariana de Jesus Mejia-Mejia sought asylum with her 7-year-old from Guatemala, entering the U.S. on May 19th. Two days later, they were separated from one another, and she was not able to speak to him, nor did she know where he was. She was released from custody on June 15th, and still was not told where he was, though she was allowed to speak to him once.
Do you know what she had to do in order to get her son back? She had to SUE THE TRUMP ADMINISTRATION. She had to sue the Department of Homeland Security, United States Customs and Immigration Services, the Department of Justice, the Department of Health and Human Services, and Customs and Border Protection.
They were finally reunited this morning at BWI airport in Baltimore, MD. Watch them embrace upon seeing one another after a month apart under the most traumatic emotional conditions a parent and little child can experience.
Should this be so difficult? So many people have pointed out that airlines give you tags to identify and find lost luggage. Valets in hotels and restaurants give you tags for your cars - for your goddamn COATS, FFS. Is NO ONE keeping track of where these children are, and how their parents can find them? They're being shipped off to "tender age shelters" and private, highly-profitable child detention centers thousands of miles away. Must a parent sue the PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES and half a dozen other federal agencies in order to be reunited with their child, so that healing can begin? This is deep and scarring trauma the children have undeniably suffered already at the hands of the jack-booted thugs who have control of our government.
We may feel helpless, but we are not. Every single one of us with a conscience could phone our members of Congress every single day to pressure them to adopt Michael Avenatti's extremely logical, extremely simple solution. A single baseball stadium holds more than 40,000 people. We're talking about a fraction of that amount. How difficult would this be?
(202) 224-3121
Call your 3 MOCs. NOW. Tell them to fight for a single staging area for reunification, and QUICKLY. Don't act like you don't have ten minutes to do this. Watch that video and try to tell yourself you don't have time.
