He came to the United States with his family to seek asylum after being victims of extortion; today they are stranded in Tijuana

The mother, a Honduran immigrant, does not remember well the questions that border patrollers asked her moments after giving birth to her baby in a hospital in Chula Vista, California, where she was still sedated.

What she does remember is that as soon as she was discharged from Scripps Mercy Hospital, less than 36 hours after delivery, the police officers took her out to the parking lot.

The mother said that they raised their baby to the front seat of a patrol, she was sitting in the back, and they took them to the border to expel them to Tijuana, Mexico, through the El Chaparral crosswalk – now closed by the pandemic.

When she walked to the border with her baby, she uselessly asked the patrollers to please let her locate her husband and 9-year-old son, from whom she was separated after they were expelled from the country.

They deported a US citizen just 36 hours old to Tijuana, which according to President Donald Trump is “the most infected city in the world” in this pandemic.

Once in Tijuana, the mother asked for charity to phone relatives in Honduras, who informed her that her husband and son were also in that city. Hours later they were able to meet.

The separation

The husband said that when the family surrendered at the border, the patrol took information from him and his son, and that they immediately took them to El Chaparral.

On the way to surrender, his wife – who was already in an advanced pregnancy – had fallen twice. Upon surrendering to the patrol, the officers called an ambulance. The woman was taken to the hospital and the father and son were expelled to Tijuana.

The man asked the police officers not to fire him without knowing about his wife, but —as his lawyer Luis González later said— they forced him since they told him not to go out, they would call the Tijuana police to take him into custody and her son would be in custody.

Today the family, who remained anonymous on legal advice, is reunited in Tijuana but fears that before it was a victim of criminals in Mexico, as in Honduras.

The family traveled more than 1,500 miles to seek asylum but were deported in just three days. / photo: Manuel Ocaño.

Without any other alternative

Her tragedy began in January when the gang of the mara entered her home and demanded her valuables. As a sign that they were serious, the gang members hit the boy on the head, who started to bleed.

The couple was able to take the minor to medical attention, but when he returned, the gang had taken possession of the house and threatened to kill everyone if he denounced or demanded that the house be returned, says the family’s lawyer.

It was then that they decided to take a 1,800-mile trip to Piedras Negras, on the Mexican-Texas border.

It was March and the pandemic had not yet reached that region, when the family crossed the border and surrendered to the patrol to request asylum.

The authorities included them in the Migrant Protection Protocol Program (MPP) and gave them an appointment.

González explains that the family was on time for that appointment when they were intercepted by criminals who threatened them with an armed weapon for at least an hour.

They were released but they had already missed the appointment and with it the possibility of requesting asylum. Due to the pandemic, the hearings had been postponed.

Weeks went by without hearing about her case and the family, who lacked resources and health care for the mother, decided to travel to Tijuana where she assumed there would still be hearings, or at least she could have information on her asylum case.

They arrived in Tijuana and crossed into San Diego, California on Saturday afternoon, June 27. The father and son were forced to leave for Tijuana the following day at 1:00 am Hours later, the new American baby was born and was expelled with his mother to Tijuana at 3:00 pm on Tuesday, June 30.

Lawyer Luis González, from Jewish Family Services (JFS) San Diego – one of two organizations representing the family – told La Opinion that the hospital in Chula Vista recommended that the mother return with the baby because she needs vaccinations and she has check-ups.

In contrast, the patrol sent the baby and his mother to Tijuana, a city that continues to rapidly accumulate COVID-19 cases.

JFS and the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) filed a joint complaint in this case with the Office of the Inspector General (OIG), which is a division of internal affairs of the federal government, and the Human Rights office of the Department of Security.

Authorities “were able to grant humanitarian permission for the family to continue their asylum process without leaving the country and the baby, who is American by birth, receive medical attention,” said the lawyer.

He added that the Security Department also omitted an interview about the family’s fears of returning to Mexico, for which it violated the MPP program.

Lawyer González indicated that luckily the hospital managed to take a record of the baby’s birth before it was taken to Tijuana. JFS is now processing a US birth certificate.

Both organizations want with their complaint to set a precedent. “We want this to never happen to any other migrant family,” said lawyer González.

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