Crying girl in photo may be with mother

WASHINGTON — Border Patrol officials said Friday that a girl who is pictured on the cover of this week’s Time magazine was not separated from her mother, despite the poignant image of the child standing alone, weeping.

Time attached a correction to its story saying “The original version of this story misstated what happened to the girl in the photo after she (was) taken from the scene. The girl was not carried away screaming by U.S. Border Patrol agents; her mother picked her up and the two were taken away together.”

Time said the girl and her mother were apprehended by Border Patrol officers on June 12. The photo showing the scene has become, to some, an iconic image of the immigration crisis on the border.

U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement said Friday that the mother, Sandra Sanchez, 32, is being housed at one of the government’s three existing family detention facilities at the South Texas Family Residential Center in Dilley, Texas. ICE would not provide information on the girl, citing privacy reasons.

Sanchez’s immigration case is ongoing.

The agency said Sanchez had been deported to Honduras in 2013 but had illegally re-entered. It’s not clear what will happen to her daughter, who is almost 2 years old, but immigration officials have said the goal would be to keep the family together even if they are deported.

In Honduras, the girl’s father, Denis Varela, said Sanchez took their daughter without telling him. He said the Honduran foreign ministry told him the two have not been separated.