A family fled death threats, only to face separation at the border

But now, in a frigid Border Patrol facility in Arizona where they were seeking asylum, Silvana Bermudez was told she had to say goodbye.

Her kids were being taken from her.

She handed her sleeping preschooler to her oldest, a 16-year-old with a whisper of a mustache whose life had been baseball and anime until a gun was pointed at his head.

“My love, take care of your little brother,” she told him on Dec. 17.

“Bye, Mommy,” said her 11-year-old daughter, sobbing.

And then her children were gone.

Family separations under Trump

Once a rarity, family separations at the border have soared under President Trump, according to advocacy groups and immigration lawyers.

The administration first put forth the idea a year ago, when John F. Kelly, then secretary of the Department of Homeland Security, said he was considering separating parents from their children as a deterrent to illegal immigration.

Kelly, now the White House chief of staff, quickly walked back his comments after they triggered public outrage, and the controversy ebbed as illegal immigration plunged to historic lows.

But when border apprehensions began to rise again late last year, so, too, did reports of children being stripped from their parents by Border Patrol or Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents.

In less than two months, I could be deported at any time. It didn’t have to be this way.

“Separating children from their parents is unconscionable and contradicts the most basic of American family values,” 71 Democratic lawmakers said in a letter to DHS in February.

“DHS does not currently have a policy of separating women and children,” according to an agency statement released this month, but retains the authority to do so in certain circumstances, “particularly to protect a child from potential smuggling and trafficking activities.”

Crisis

The family’s crisis began a year ago, when Silvana’s husband, Yulio Bermudez, refused to help MS-13 members in San Salvador escape from police in his taxi. The gang beat him and threatened to kill him.

Yulio fled north and crossed illegally into Texas, where the 34-year-old claimed asylum and eventually joined relatives.

Then one night in November, Silvana sent her oldest son — Yulio’s stepson — to a pupuseria down the block. As he was walking, the teenager saw a car pull up. A member of MS-13’s rival, the 18th Street gang, peppered the restaurant with gunfire.

The gang member then turned his gun on the teen, who was frozen with fear. But when he pulled the trigger, there was only the click of an empty chamber.

“Must be your lucky day,” the gangster said and sped off.

Silvana, 33, and her son reported the incident to police, also describing Yulio’s run-in with MS-13. Within days, MS-13 members showed up to their door to tell Silvana she’d pay for snitching, she would later tell U.S. immigration officials. And when the 18th Street member saw her in the street, he pointed his finger at her like a gun.

“It was a clear sign that he was on to us and he wanted to hurt me and my child,” she said in immigration court filings.

Escape

Relatives drove Silvana and her kids to the border with Guatemala, where they caught the first of many buses on their way to America.

When they arrived at the U.S.-Mexico border several days later, Silvana and her children followed a group of migrants through the night to a tall brick wall.

After getting past the wall, Silvana was told at a Border Patrol facility in Arizona that she was being separated from her kids because she had tried to enter the country illegally a decade earlier. Border Patrol agents said she would be charged with “illegal reentry” — a felony punishable by up to 20 years in prison — and that her children could not join her in court, she recalled later. (The Washington Post is not naming the children because of the family’s fears about their safety.)

Kids

The kids were driven to La Hacienda del Sol, one of dozens of shelters around the country for unaccompanied minors. And it was surrounded by a six-foot fence.

Silvana’s sons were given bunk beds in a room with several other boys. The windows were equipped with alarms, which often went off during the night. Each evening, the 16-year-old would lie awake worrying about their fate.

And each morning, the 3-year-old would wake up and ask the same question.

“Where’s Mommy?”

“She had to go to work,” his older brother would say. “She had to go shopping.”

Mom

For Silvana, the days after the separation were a blur. She was taken to U.S. District Court in Yuma, where she pleaded guilty to illegal entry, a misdemeanor.

She was sent to a detention center in San Luis, Ariz., to serve a five-day sentence, and then transferred back to the same hielera. The officers told her they didn’t have any information on her kids. She says she wasn’t allowed a phone call.

“The first week was torture,” Silvana recalled.

I’m a legal immigrant. In high school, I would have agreed with Trump.

On Dec. 23, she was put on a plane to a federal detention center in Buffalo.

After a month at the detention facility, Silvana finally had a chance to tell immigration officials about the gang and death threats in El Salvador. They determined she had a reasonable fear of persecution if she returned — the first step toward being able to stay in the United States.

And on March 8, she appeared before Buffalo immigration judge Walter Ruehle, who agreed that she could be released and set her bond at $2,000.

“I hope you get to see your children soon,” he said.

Reunited again

Three months after being separated from her children, Silvana finally got to see them again.

The teenager was the first to spot her, arriving in a taxi.

“Mom,” he yelled, a huge smile across his face.

Would the 16-year-old be angry? Would the 11-year-old forgive her? Would her youngest even recognize her?

The taxi door barely slid open before the teenager was upon her.

“I love you,” she whispered into his ear, tears streaking down her face.

“I love you, too,” he answered.

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As Silvana hugged her eldest, she felt a gentle tug on her ponytail.

“I like your braids,” her daughter said softly of the cornrows she’d acquired in Buffalo.

Silvana’s 3-year-old hovered at the edge of all the embraces until she lifted him up.

She knew that much about their future remained uncertain. There would be immigration check-ins and asylum hearings and a judge’s ruling to decide if they could have the life they’d come so far — and endured so much — to build.

But in this moment, all she cared about was seeing recognition in the eyes of the son she hadn’t held in three months.

“Who am I, my darling?” she asked in Spanish. “Who am I?”

The boy rubbed his eyes, looking elsewhere.

“What’s my name?” Silvana said.

The boy put his fingers in his mouth, saying nothing.

“Mommy,” she answered for him. “I am your mommy.”