On Sunday, an immigrant mother and her daughter who were separated at the border by the Trump administration’s zero tolerance policy, finally reunited in Miami.
Buena Ventura Martin-Godinez hadn’t seen her 7-year old daughter Janne since she had left her daughter in Guatemala more than two months ago. Martin-Godinez had been staying with family in Miami after she crossed the US border with her infant son and claimed asylum on May 1, reported CNN. Martin-Godinez claimed she was fleeing gang violence and extortion threats in her hometown in northwestern Guatemala.
Pedro Godinez Aguilar, Martin-Godinez’s husband, crossed the border with Janne shortly afterwards, unaware that the Trump administration had enacted a zero-tolerance policy that would force parents who crossed the border to be separated from their children.
The effects of this policy sent Godinez Aguilar to a deportation jail in Atlanta while Janne was detained in Michigan, reported ABC News. From the child welfare agency in Michigan where she was held in custody, Janne made several tearful calls to her mother asking to meet her.
When they finally reunited at Miami Dade airport on Sunday, Janne cried as her mother wiped away her tears. “She is asking to never be separated from her mother again,” Martin-Godinez said, translating into Spanish what her daughter said in her native Mam, reported CNN.
When asked to convey a message to other mothers, Martin-Godinez told them to consider not coming to the U.S. “The laws here are harsh. And people don’t have hearts,” she said.”People dream of coming here, to save their lives, but I don’t what them to experience what I’ve gone through,” she said.
ABC News reported that more Guatemalans crossed the border than any other nation, with 29,278 families apprehended between October and the end of May. They flee home due to gang violence, state corruption, and poverty. These migrants look towards America not in the hope of achieving the American dream, but rather to safeguard their own lives and the lives of their families.