Judge orders family to be reunited now

CHICAGO — A federal judge in Chicago on Thursday ordered the U.S. government to release a 9-yearold Brazilian boy who was separated from his mother at the U.s.-mexican border, saying their continued separation “irreparably harms them both.”

Judge Manish Shah mulled his decision for just a few hours before finding that Lidia Karine Souza can have custody of her son, Diogo, who has spent four weeks at a government-contracted shelter. Shah ordered that the child be released Thursday, but didn’t specify a time.

The mother, who has applied for asylum, was released from an immigrant detention facility in Texas on June 9 and is living with relatives outside Boston.

“We are thrilled that Lidia Souza and her son will be reunited today as the result of this afternoon’s order,” attorneys Jesse Bless and Britt Miller said in a written statement. “Judge Shah has vindicated the rule of law and taken a definitive step to allow Lidia’s son to finally be with her again.”

Shah, the son of immigrants from India, took just four hours before posting his written ruling after a hearing Thursday morning.

“Continued separation of … (the) nine year-old child, and Souza,” he wrote, “irreparably harms them both.”

The decision came two days after a different judge ordered the government to reunite more than 2,000 immigrant children with their families within 30 days, or 14 days for those younger than 5. Souza’s attorneys nonetheless moved forward with an emergency hearing in their lawsuit against the Trump administration to demand her son be immediately released.

Souza has been allowed to phone her son for just 20 minutes per week. She has said he would beg her though tears to do everything in her power to get him back to her.