Admin Separates Migrant Families in US 12/11 06:13

   

   MIAMI (AP) -- President Donald Trump's zero-tolerance immigration policy 
split more than 5,000 children from their families at the Mexico border during 
his first term.

   Border crossings sit at a record low nearly a year into his second 
administration and a new wave of immigration enforcement is dividing families 
inside the U.S.

   Federal officials and their local law enforcement partners are detaining 
tens of thousands of asylum-seekers and migrants. Detainees are moved 
repeatedly, then deported, or held in poor conditions for weeks or months 
before asking to go home.

   The federal government was holding an average of more than 66,000 people in 
November, the highest on record.

   During the first Trump administration, families were forcibly separated at 
the border and authorities struggled to find children in a vast shelter system 
because government computer systems weren't linked. Now parents inside the 
United States are being arrested by immigration authorities and separated from 
their families during prolonged detention. Or, they choose to have their 
children remain in the U.S. after an adult is deported, many after years or 
decades here.

   The Trump administration and its anti-immigration backers see "unprecedented 
success" and Trump's top border adviser Tom Homan told reporters in April that 
"we're going to keep doing it, full speed ahead."

   Three families separated by migration enforcement in recent months told The 
Associated Press that their dreams of better, freer lives had clashed with 
Washington's new immigration policy and their existence is anguished without 
knowing if they will see their loved ones again.

   For them, migration marked the possible start of permanent separation 
between parents and children, the source of deep pain and uncertainty.

   A family divided between Florida and Venezuela

   Antonio Laverde left Venezuela for the U.S. in 2022 and crossed the border 
illegally, then requested asylum.

   He got a work permit and a driver's license and worked as an Uber driver in 
Miami, sharing homes with other immigrants so he could send money to relatives 
in Venezuela and Florida.

   Laverde's wife Jakelin Pasedo and their sons followed him from Venezuela to 
Miami in December 2024. Pasedo focused on caring for her sons while her husband 
earned enough to support the family. Pasedo and the kids got refugee status but 
Laverde, 39, never obtained it and as he left for work one early June morning, 
he was arrested by federal agents.

   Pasedo says it was a case of mistaken identity by agents hunting for a 
suspect in their shared housing. In the end, she and her children, then 3 and 
5, remember the agents cuffing Laverde at gunpoint.

   "They got sick with fever, crying for their father, asking for him," Pasedo 
said.

   Laverde was held at Broward Transitional Center, a detention facility in 
Pompano Beach, Florida. In September, after three months detention, he asked to 
return to Venezuela.

   Pasedo, 39, however, has no plans to go back. She fears she could be 
arrested or kidnapped for criticizing the socialist government and belonging to 
the political opposition.

   She works cleaning offices and, despite all the obstacles, hopes to reunify 
with her husband someday in the U.S.

   They followed the law

   Yaoska's husband was a political activist in Nicaragua, a country tight in 
the grasp of autocratic married co-presidents Daniel Ortega and Rosario Murillo.

   She remembers her husband getting death threats and being beaten by police 
when he refused to participate in a pro-government march. Yaoska spoke on 
condition of anonymity and requested the same for her husband to protect him 
from the Nicaraguan government.

   The couple fled Nicaragua for the U.S. with their 10-year-old son in 2022, 
crossing the border and getting immigration parole. Settling down in Miami, 
they applied for asylum and had a second son, who has U.S. citizenship. Yaoska 
is now five months pregnant with their third child.

   In late August, Yaoska, 32, went to an appointment at the South Florida 
office of U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement. Her family accompanied her. 
Her husband, 35, was detained and failed his credible fear interview, according 
to a court document.

   Yaoska was released under 24-hour supervision by a GPS watch that she cannot 
remove. Her husband was deported to Nicaragua after three months at the Krome 
Detention Center, the United States' oldest immigration detention facility and 
one with a long history of abuse.

   Yaoska now shares family news with her husband by phone. The children are 
struggling without their father, she said.

   "It's so hard to see my children like this. They arrested him right in front 
of them," Yaoska said, her voice trembling.

   They don't want to eat and are often sick. The youngest wakes up at night 
asking for him.

   "I'm afraid in Nicaragua," she said. "But I'm scared here too."

   Yaoska said her work authorization is valid until 2028 but the future is 
frightening and uncertain.

   "I've applied to several job agencies, but nobody calls me back," she said. 
"I don't know what's going to happen to me."

   He was detained by local police, then deported

   Edgar left Guatemala more than two decades ago. Working construction, he 
started a family in South Florida with Amavilia, a fellow undocumented 
Guatemalan migrant.

   The arrival of their son brought them joy.

   "He was so happy with the baby -- he loved him," said Amavilia, 31. "He told 
me he was going to see him grow up and walk."

   But within a few days, Edgar was detained on a 2016 warrant for driving 
without a license in Homestead, the small agricultural city where he lived in 
South Florida.

   She and her husband declined to provide their last names because they are 
worried about repercussion from U.S. immigration officials.

   Amavilia expected his release within 48 hours. Instead, Edgar, who declined 
to be interviewed, was turned over to immigration officials and moved to Krome.

   "I fell into despair. I didn't know what to do," Amavilia said. "I can't go."

   Edgar, 45, was deported to Guatemala on June 8.

   After Edgar's detention, Amavilia couldn't pay the $950 rent for the 
two-bedroom apartment she shares with another immigrant. For the first three 
months, she received donations from immigration advocates.

   Today, breastfeeding and caring for two children, she wakes up at 3 a.m. to 
cook lunches she sells for $10 each.

   She walks with her son in a stroller to take her daughter to school, then 
spends afternoons selling homemade ice cream and chocolate-covered bananas door 
to door with her two children.

   Amavilia crossed the border in September 2023 and did not seek asylum or any 
type of legal status. She said her daughter grows anxious around police. She 
urges her to stay calm, smile and walk with confidence.

   "I'm afraid to go out, but I always go out entrusting myself to God," she 
said. "Every time I return home, I feel happy and grateful."