GUATEMALA CITY: Nine Guatemalan child migrants who were taken from their parents at the US border arrived home for tearful reunions Tuesday as the Trump administration tries to comply with a court order to return hundreds of separated minors to their families.
“I want to see my mama,” Leo Jeancarlo de Leon, 6, said after he got off a plane from New York at Guatemala City’s international airport wearing a Spider-Man T-shirt and a blue cap.
Four children arrived on a first flight and five on a second, each one escorted by an adult. Ranging in age from 4 to 14, they wore jeans, T-shirts and new-looking sneakers. Some of the girls were in pigtails. One was a pregnant 14-year-old for whom the Guatemalan equivalent of an Amber Alert had previously been issued.
Kids giggled as they were given strawberry cookies and Incaparina, a fortified drink made from corn and soy. In a blue-, white- and pastel yellow-painted room at the airport where the children were initially processed and given medical checkups, workers set out Lego blocks, toy trains, teddy bears and wigs for them to play with.
Around midafternoon the children were taken to a state-run shelter where Leo’s mother, Lourdes de Leon, had been waiting since 8 a.m. She wept as she knelt to embrace him nearly three months after the last time she saw the boy in person.
“I promise I will never again leave you,” de Leon said, surrounded by a gaggle of journalists. “I missed you so much, my God!“
Manuel Estuardo Roldan, Guatemala’s vice minister of foreign affairs, said Monday that 53 Guatemalan children separated at the US border had been reunited with relatives so far.
In late June, amid widespread outcry over US policies that led to separations of migrant families along the border, a US judge ordered that more than 2,500 children be reunited with their parents.
However, hundreds remained apart after the deadline, often in cases in which parents had already been deported without their children.
Lourdes de Leon was one of those.
In a previous interview with The Associated Press, de Leon said she and Leo went to the United States in search of a better life because her low-paid job selling clothing wasn’t enough to provide him with a good future.
They arrived in Arizona on May 10, and the boy was taken from her a couple of days later. She ultimately agreed to sign a deportation order because she said Guatemalan consular officials told her that would be the easiest way to see her son again. But she was returned to Guatemala on June 7, while he remained in a shelter in New York.
During the separation the only contact she had with him from Guatemala was video calls arranged by workers at the US shelter.
“I missed my mama a lot,” Leo said Tuesday. “When they separated me, I felt said.”
De Leon said they would not return to her small, poor hometown of San Pablo, in the San Marcos municipality near the border with Mexico. At least for a while, they planned to stay with relatives in the capital.
Asked whether she would try to go to the United States again, she gave an emphatic, “No.”
“I am happy,” she said, still in tears. “The only thing I want is to be alone with my son.”
Tearful reunions for 9 separated kids back in Guatemala
Tearful reunions for 9 separated kids back in Guatemala
- Hundreds remained apart after the deadline, often in cases in which parents had already been deported without their children
- During the separation the only contact she had with him from Guatemala was video calls arranged by workers at the US shelter
Kremlin says Putin is mediating in Iran to normalize situation
- Putin had then been briefed by Pezeshkian in a separate call on what the Kremlin called Tehran’s “sustained efforts” to normalize the situation inside Iran
MOSCOW: President Vladimir Putin is mediating in the Iran situation to quickly de-escalate tensions, the Kremlin said on Friday, after the Russian leader spoke with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Iranian President Masoud Pezeshkian.
Moscow has condemned US threats of new military strikes after Iran acted against protests that broke out late last month.
Putin in his call with Netanyahu expressed Russia’s willingness to “continue its mediation efforts and to promote constructive dialogue with the participation of all interested states,” the Kremlin said, adding he had set out his ideas for boosting stability in the Middle East.
No further details were given on Putin’s mediation attempt.
Putin had then been briefed by Pezeshkian in a separate call on what the Kremlin called Tehran’s “sustained efforts” to normalize the situation inside Iran.
“It was noted that Russia and Iran unanimously and consistently support de-escalating
the tensions — both surrounding Iran and in the region as a whole — as soon as possible
and resolving any emerging issues through exclusively political and diplomatic means,” the Kremlin said.
Putin and Pezeshkian had confirmed their commitment to their countries’ strategic partnership and to implementing joint economic projects, the Kremlin added.
Separately, the Shanghai Cooperation Organization, which includes Russia, China, India, and Iran, among others, said it opposed external interference in Iran and blamed Western sanctions for creating conditions for unrest.
“Unilateral sanctions have had a significant negative impact on the economic stability of the state, led to a deterioration in people’s living conditions, and objectively limited the ability of the Government of the Islamic Republic of Iran to implement measures to ensure the country’s socio-economic development,” the SCO said in a statement.
Protests erupted on Dec. 28 over soaring inflation in Iran, whose economy has been crippled by sanctions.
Asked what support Russia could provide to Iran, Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said: “Russia is already providing assistance not only to Iran but also to the entire region, and to the cause of regional stability and peace. This is partly thanks to the president’s efforts to help de-escalate tensions.”
The US Treasury on Thursday announced new sanctions targeting Iranian officials, including Ali Larijani, secretary of Iran’s Supreme Council for National Security.
