Immigrant mother sues US to be reunited with baby

They were separated after she and her child crossed the border

An El Salvadoran immigrant woman has filed a federal lawsuit against the US administration, asking to be reunited with her infant daughter.

Leydi Duenas-Claros, 30, also seeks a halt to her deportation proceedings and wants the government to reconsider her denied asylum claim, CNN reported. “We are waiting to go before a judge and will be able to comment more at a later time,” Claudia O’Brien, an attorney for Duenas, said on Thursday.

Duenas was set to be deported on Thursday, but O’Brien was told the proceedings were postponed. In May, Duenas came to the US with her then11-month-old daughter, one of her five children who by birth are American citizens, to seek asylum, according to the lawsuit. They were separated after she and her child crossed the border. “(The mother) has suffered, and continues to suffer, extreme anguish and trauma due to the forcible separation from her infant child — a baby so young that she was breastfeeding prior to the separation,” the lawsuit said.

Duenas was denied asylum in late July. Despite President Donald Trump signing an executive order in June to stop family separations, the mother and daughter are yet to be reunited. In July, a federal judge in California ordered the US government to temporarily pause deportations of reunited families to allow attorneys time to debate whether the judge should permanently extend that order.

Federal lawsuit