Brazilian boy, 9, released to mom after US judge’s order
CHICAGO (AP) — A Brazilian mother and 9-year-old son separated at the U.S.-Mexico border were reunited Thursday after a federal judge in Chicago ordered the U.S. government to release the child, saying their continued time apart “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 in Chicago. Shah ordered that the child be released Thursday, and hours later the mother and son were standing in front of a row of TV cameras smiling at each other. Diogo wrapped his arm around his mom’s waist and she wrapped hers around his shoulder.
The reunion occurred as the White House is under increasing pressure to bring families back together after a judge this week ordered federal officials to do so in 30 days for many parents and children.
More than 2,000 children remain separated from their parents, and critics say the government has no plan to reunite them.
White House spokeswoman Lindsay Walters told reporters on Air Force One that various federal agencies “are continuing to work through ensuring that remaining children are reunified with their parents.”
When asked if the Health and Human Services Department — the agency that’s in charge of reuniting families — will be able to comply with the 30-day deadline, she called on Congress to reform the nation’s immigration system.
At the news conference at her lawyers’ office in a Chicago high-rise building, Souza was asked if she had a message for President Donald Trump. Speaking through a Portuguese translator, she responded, “Don’t do this to the children.”
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.
“Judge Shah has vindicated the rule of law and taken a definitive step to allow Lidia’s son to finally be with her again. We are hopeful that this outcome will benefit other families facing similar circumstances,” attorneys Jesse Bless and Britt Miller said in a written statement.
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.”
In Washington, D.C., police arrested nearly 600 people Thursday after hundreds of loudly chanting women demonstrated inside a Senate office building against Trump’s immigration policy. Among those arrested was Rep. Pramila Jayapal, the Democrat from Washington state said on twitter.
Meanwhile, Melania Trump spent time with children at a complex in Phoenix where dozens of migrant children separated from their parents at the border are being held.
Souza’s son spent four weeks at a government-contracted shelter in Chicago, much of it alone in a room, quarantined with chickenpox. He spent his ninth birthday on Monday without his mom.
The boy appeared relaxed at the news conference, speaking comfortably when asked questions by reporters. But he said the days after he was separated from his mom were difficult.
“I cried almost every day I wasn’t with my mother,” he said through a translator.