Parents speak out on what it was like to be separated from their kids.

Parents tell of being separated from kids

EL PASO — Miriam hasn’t seen her 5-year-old son since June 16, when she was arrested for crossing the border illegally and border agents took the boy away. She tried to call him on Monday at the New York shelter where he’s staying, but she could only talk to his social worker.

“He is a little boy,” she said, her voice breaking. “I asked to talk to him, but he is mad with me. He didn’t want to talk to me because he thinks I have abandoned him.”

Miriam of Guatemala was among a group of five parents at the Casa Vides migrants’ shelter here who spoke about being separated from their children at the border, something they described as heartbreaking and terrifying.

Thirty-two Central American parents were taken here Sunday after misdemeanor immigration charges against them were dropped and they were freed while their immigration cases move forward.

Officials at Annunciation House, the El Paso nonprofit that runs Casa Vides, said the five parents agreed to speak publicly, but asked only that their first names be used because they fear retribution as they try to reunite with their children.

Miriam and her son were apprehended in El Paso on June 15, and the boy was taken from her in the early morning hours of June 16.

Separated immigrant children are all over the U.S. now, far from parents who don’t know where they are.

“He said to me, the immigration person, ‘Get your son ready because we are taking him,’ ” Miriam said through a translator, noting that she asked the immigration official where the boy would be taken and that she was told only that he would end up at a shelter.

Annunciation House officials said all 32 parents released Sunday are free on their own recognizance while their immigration cases are pending.

Taylor Levy, Annunciation House’s legal coordinator, said most of the parents had not spoken to their children before being brought to the shelter, though some knew through other family members where their children were being held. The average age of the separated children is 10; the youngest child is 5.

Miriam said the policy of separating children from their families at the border — which has been rescinded since her crossing — has created an excruciating situation that, for her, is indefinite.

“It is very sad to separate us from our children,” she said. “They don’t feel the pain that a parent feels. You have to be a parent to know the pain to lose a child.”