A woman’s search for son taken by US immigration

IT TOOK 85 days for Olivia Caceres to retrieve her baby boy, pulled from his father’s arms at the US border, a traumatic experience many more parents face to reunite with children separated under President Donald Trump’s immigration policies.

Now nearly 20 months old, Mateo was returned to his family on February 8 after a battle across borders, officialdom and languages. He was filthy and terrified of the dark, his mother said. Months later, the boy still screeches, even as Caceres rocks him on her chest, sometimes until dawn.

The Salvadoran family’s story of struggle in US immigration detention presaged what was to come: Trump’s “zero tolerance” policy that led to more than 2 300 migrant children being separated from parents.

Caceres’ quest to find her child foreshadows the long road ahead for many immigrant families after Trump reversed the separation policy and directed agencies to begin reuniting families this week.

Last year, Caceres, her husband, Jose Demar Fuentes, and their children, Mateo, 12 months old, and five-year-old Andree, fled El Salvador where gangs had demanded protection money, and crossed Mexico in one of the regular “caravans” of migrants who travel together for safety.

On November 12, Fuentes sought asylum at the Mexican border, citing the gang threats. Caceres was due to follow a few days later with Andree.

But Caceres heard that US immigration officials had taken Mateo because Fuentes SAN SALVADOR: El Salvador yesterday demanded the US return a child who had been taken from his father before the man was deported this week without any prior notification to embassy officials.

El Salvador’s Foreign Ministry said it registered its first deportation of a father separated from his son for trying to illegally enter the US.

The man, who was not identified, was deported on Wednesday without any word to El Salvadoran embassy officials, as was required under was taken to a detention centre Still in Tijuana, she began a frantic search for her son.

When she finally got Mateo back, “he looked like he hadn’t been bathed in three months”, said Caceres in a recent telephone interview with Reuters. “It was very hard to see the condition he was in. I don’t want to imagine that mountain of children, how they care for them,” she said.

The potential consequences of such separations include impacts on brain development and mental health, as well as persistent behavioural and academic problems, child development experts say.

That first night, Mateo was inconsolable as Caceres held him, whispering he was “with your mama,” she said.

Caceres had finally located Mateo at a facility in Texas. The phone number for the facility is registered to International Educational Services Inc (IES). A non-profit group, IES closed in March after losing funding from the Office of