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MIAMI – A seven-year-old Guatemalan girl, separated from her family for almost two months after being detained at the US-Mexico border, was released from the federal foster care system and found again in Miami on Sunday. his mother .
Janne Martin-Godinez and his father were arrested at the Arizona border in mid-May, a week after the arrival of his mother in the United States with his little brother. The family of four was scattered throughout the country under the "zero tolerance" policy of the Trump administration: Janne was placed in a Michigan shelter, her father was sent to a detention center in Georgia and his mother was released.
Janne and her mother were hugging each other tightly when they were meeting, both crying while cameramen crews surrounded them at Concourse H of the Miami International Airport. . Her mother stroked Janne's hair and cried softly as the girl wrapped her arms around her mother's waist and did not give up for more than a minute.
"I'm so happy, so happy," says the mother, Buena Ventura Martin-Godinez, in Spanish thanks to an interpreter. "I did not know when I would see her again."
Janne changed her laugh and tears as she hugged other relatives, uncles and cousins, who live in Miami and came to greet her. She covered her brother's face with kisses for 10 months and left him a "Love" balloon that someone had given him at the airport.
[‘When will I see you, Mama?’: A family split throughout the country waits to be reunited]
She laughed and smiled after a while, but as she told reporters of her trip to America and being separated from her father, she started crying again.
The family fled their home in western Guatemala because they were threatened by gang members demanding money from them. Martin-Godinez, 29, a nurse, said she was also threatened by a supervisor at the clinic where she worked.
She and her husband, Pedro Godinez Aguilar, 34, decided to travel to the United States separately. Martin-Godinez left first, with his young son. They were arrested on May 9 by immigration and customs officers on the border of Arizona. Mother and son were detained together for about a week. When she was released, she was taken with her son to the Greyhound bus station for the trip to Miami.
When her husband and daughter left Guatemala, they had a much more heartbreaking experience. they took it, very fast, "said Janne, who speaks in Mam's Mayan dialect, remembering what happened on May 16 when she and her father were arrested by agents ICE
To be strong, "she says of her father, wiping her tears with a stuffed rabbit.
The girl was quickly taken to Michigan – her first time on a plane – and entrusted to Bethany Christian Services, a nonprofit organization, contracts with the US Department of Health and Human Services to place immigrant children separated from their families at the border in foster care.
Bethany has placed at least 81 immigrant children in foster homes. "Joseph DiBenedetto, an attorney at the agency, said Sunday that he did not know how many children in Bethany's care were reunited with a parent.
[‘Are you alone now?’ After raid, immigrant families are separated in the American heartland]
Government officials said 500 of the more than 2,300 children separated from their families at the border has been reunited since May.
Janne's first plane trip was terrifying, she told her mother. Sunday's trip seemed to be better.
"She was fine, we had a good flight," said Bethany Christian Services' social worker who accompanied her during the flight. He would only identify as Mike. "She had cookies and juice, and she had a coloring book and pencils, so it was fine."
Janne said that the house where she lived in Michigan was fine – she said that she was sleeping in a bunk bed she shared with another girl, and the family bought her clothes and toys.
But she said that she cried every day because she missed her family. Her foster family could not understand her, because she did not speak English or Spanish, and she was sick for most of last week. In her daily calls to her mother, she said that she had fever and headaches. The mother said that Janne had received medical attention and was taken to a dentist on Monday, several days after she began complaining of pain. She was diagnosed with an infected tooth and received antibiotics.
His father is detained at the Folkston ICE Processing Center in Georgia. Martin-Godinez said that he is facing some deportation. She is waiting for a hearing in Miami on her status. During that time, she took a job planting flowers in Homestead, a rural area west of Miami where she lives in a small house with 11 other people.
Volunteer Nora Sandigo, who has been helping immigrant children in Miami for 30 years. Godinez at Rep. Carlos Curbelo's Miami office (R-Fla.) Last week to ask for help. She called Rep. Ileana Ros-Lehtinen (R-Fla.), And Senator Marco Rubio (R-Fla.), And she spoke to the media about the family's story.
Sandigo said the attention given to this case move him faster than most.
"It's a crime what happens to these kids," she said. "He should not take a story in the newspaper to bring back to their parents."
Janne said that the first meal she wanted to share with her mother and brother was pizza. It's summer, but she still wants to go to school. Her mother went on a shopping spree before picking her up at the airport, buying her dresses, shoes, pencils and paper.
She wants her whole family to come together, she said, "She is happy now, but she wants her father," said Martin-Godinez, interpreting for his daughter in Spanish. "She told me that she would never want to be away from her family again."
The mother restrains her tears by interpreting the words of her daughter
"Please, do not let anyone take me away again."
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