Harrowing footage shows mother reunited with baby after being separated for month under Trump border policy
'There are thousands of other families experiencing the same, but maybe they’re afraid to speak out," says mother
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Your support makes all the difference.Harrowing footage has shown an 17-month girl being reunited with her mother a month after being separated from her asylum-seeking parents by US border forces.
The Honduran toddler is seen crying as she is cradled by her tearful mother, Sindy Flores, at San Francisco International Airport.
The child, Juliet, was taken into custody by US Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) when officers detained her father at the US-Mexico border in late December.
Her father, Kevin Ventura-Corrales, is facing deportation but his partner, Ms Flores, remained in the US while her asylum claim was processed.
Juliet was held at a shelter for migrant children in Texas after being taken from her parents.
"I was devastated, not knowing what to do,” her mother told NBC. “Impotent knowing she was somewhere else and not with me.”
The 23-year-old said was concerned about the impact the separation had had on her daughter and how she was treated while detained.
San Francisco psychologist Chandra Ghoshippen said: “Not only is she old enough to be affected, she’s more likely to be affected than an older child because her parents are her world; they’re everything she knows.”
Juliet and Ms Flores were reunited on Tuesday following campaigning by Mijente, a grassroots Latin American social justice movement.
“I’m not the only one going through this,” Ms Flores told the San Francisco Chronicle. "There are thousands of other families experiencing the same, but maybe they’re afraid to speak out.”
Ms Flores has two other children, aged seven and nine, who crossed the border with her and have been staying in San Francisco.
Mijente said the family were now facing a "very long battle" for asylum in the US.
US immigration officials are working through more than 800,000 applications after the government shutdown exacerbated an already huge backlog.
In June last year, Donald Trump's administration officially abolished its controversial policy of separating children from their migrant parents after they cross the border illegally.
But campaigners say the zero-tolerance policy is still continuing at the border.
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