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A Honduran mother in San Francisco was reunited with her 17-month-old daughter on Tuesday night after spending a month desperately pleading with federal immigration authorities for the return of her baby who was separated from her father at the U.S.-Mexico border.
The baby, Juliet, was sent to a shelter for migrant children in Texas after immigration officials took her from her father, whom they arrested Dec. 28 near Calexico. Juliet’s mother, Sindy Flores, told The Chronicle that the federal government kept adding requirements for the child’s release, including a credit card payment of up to $4,000 to fly the girl to San Francisco with a care provider.
But on Tuesday, after The Chronicle and other news organizations inquired about the case, immigration officials notified the mother that they would immediately send Juliet to San Francisco. She arrived at San Francisco International Airport just after 10 p.m.
As the care provider who accompanied Juliet placed her in her mother’s arms — Juliet began to wail loudly. Flores, 23, hugged Juliet and whisked her away from the circle of reporters and television cameras.
“I’m nervous. I can’t describe it,” Flores had said moments before the reunification, saying she planned to tell her baby “how much I love her, how much I’ve missed her.”
Flores, who is seeking asylum, had agonized about her baby’s well-being.
“They’re damaging her psychologically,” Flores had said before learning she would be reunited. “She’s going to be dealing with the trauma of thinking we left her, that we abandoned her.”
The family’s plight came six months after the Trump administration said it suspended its controversial family separation policy. But in this case, immigration authorities said other factors led to the child being removed from her parents’ custody.
Juliet’s father, Kevin Ventura-Corrales, is being detained by U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement in Arizona, according to his attorney, Eric Fish, and government records.
The family’s ordeal reveals the complexities — and the consequences — of immigrants navigating the government’s labyrinth of immigration policies, which often span several states, agencies and even generations. It also shows just how daunting the process can be for families seeking asylum, particularly under an administration intent on restricting illegal immigration.
Thousands of children were separated from their parents last year under Trump’s “zero tolerance” policy, which criminally prosecuted anyone who illegally crossed the border. Children accompanying parents or other adults on the journey were put in shelters or foster care under the Department of Health and Human Services’ Office of Refugee Resettlement.
The Trump administration has said nearly 3,000 children were forcibly separated from their parents.
But a report this month revealed the administration may have separated thousandsmore children from their parents than what was initially believed.
Immigration advocates rallying on the family’s behalf fear their case is an indication the administration is still applying its zero tolerance policy at the border, despite the policy ending months ago. Immigration authorities, however, said the father has a criminal record and four prior deportations — circumstances that justified separation even under the previous administration’s policies.
Ventura-Corrales was charged with a serious misdemeanor in 2013, according to David Kim, assistant chief Border Patrol agent in the El Centro sector, who declined to say what the man was convicted of.
Records at the Renton Municipal Court in Washington state show that Ventura-Corrales, 27, was charged with two counts of harassment in September 2013, one of which was domestic-violence related. He was convicted on the domestic-violence charge but cleared of the second charge that same year.
Though it was a factor in his arrest, Kim said Ventura-Corrales was taken into custody for illegally re-entering the country, which is a felony.
“Once a person is charged with a felony and they get rolled into the criminal process, obviously a child is not going to accompany them,” he said. “I think these things have to be put into perspective. Sometimes there’s different ways that people can view these types of occurrences and I think context really matters.”
The newest charges against Ventura-Corrales were later dropped and he was transferred into ICE custody in Arizona, Kim said.
The Administration for Children and Families, which oversees the Office of Refugee Resettlement, declined to provide specific details on Juliet’s case or her location but said part of its mission is to “identify the most appropriate and least restrictive placement, usually with a sponsor, for each child while they await their U.S. immigration proceedings.”
When people want to take an unaccompanied immigrant child out of government custody, they must complete a rigorous application and background check process — even if they are the child’s parents. The Trump administration has made this process more rigorous and has worked with Immigration and Customs Enforcement to conduct more thorough background checks, which led to skyrocketing numbers of children being kept in custody before the policies were relaxed slightly.
Once granted custody of the child, the sponsor is responsible for all transportation costs, including air fare for care providers or airline escorts that accompany the child.
“Under no circumstances will ORR pay for the sponsor’s airfare,” according to the agency’s website.
Flores, who said her family fled gang threats in Honduras, said she and her husband split up unexpectedly during a run-in with Mexican immigration authorities in Puebla — he grabbed Juliet and she took her two older children from a previous marriage.
She looked for Ventura-Corrales at several shelters, she said. During a stop at one of these shelters, Flores was told her husband had been there a few days prior and had continued north. She crossed the border on her own with her children, ages 9 and 7. Flores petitioned for asylum at the Calexico border and was detained for a few days before being released, wearing an ankle monitor, on Jan. 2.
She’s staying with relatives in San Francisco pending her asylum case.
Flores said ICE specifically requested a credit card payment to pay for plane tickets to fly her daughter to California but said she doesn’t have a credit card. Most recently, the agency requested a notarized letter signed by Ventura-Corrales in Arizona that would give them permission to release the baby to her custody, according to Fish, the father’s attorney.
“I wouldn’t want any of my kids to be in this position,” Flores said. “But for it to be my youngest, who doesn’t speak and can’t defend herself or tell me what they did to her or how they treated her… it’s not the same as if it were to happen to an older child who can communicate what happened.”
A GoFundMe for Flores has reached nearly $9,000.
San Francisco Chronicle Washington correspondent Tal Kopan contributed to this report.
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