Venezuelan Emmanuel Leandro Venecia, just 11 years old, spent three months alone in his home in Texas after his mother Daisy Carolina Farias, 35, was detained by US immigration. While he waited for her, he continued to go to school and even walked to his graduation ceremony. A neighbor fed him, but he was primarily responsible for himself. Fearing the boy would be sent to an orphanage, Daisy lied to the authorities, saying he was in the care of an adult. When she was deported to Venezuela at the end of July, Emmanuel ended up moving in with an acquaintance.
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He said – I still hope he will meet me again.
Stories similar to Emanuel’s abound in the United States. An increasing number of Venezuelan children have been left behind after their parents are deported, in the care of relatives, neighbors or anyone else who can take responsibility. The Venezuelan government counted 150 minors, from newborns to teenagers, who were separated from their parents during the deportation campaign carried out by the Donald Trump administration. Most were born in Venezuela, some in Colombia and others in the United States, making repatriation more complicated.
According to Caracas, out of 150 separated children, 57 have already been returned to the country on flights negotiated between the two governments. However, as of the middle of this month, 93 people remained in the United States, a number that is likely to rise, according to Maduro’s government. There is no official American record of separations.
The Venezuelan government submitted the lists to the US State Department, which in turn forwarded them to Immigration and Customs Enforcement, but diplomatic cooperation deteriorated after tensions included military operations by Washington in the Caribbean against ships suspected of drug smuggling.
The New York Times interviewed family members of more than a dozen children whose parents were deported or detained in the United States and compared their accounts with court documents and police records. Many said they chose to be deported without their children to avoid long detention periods, believing that would speed up their reunification.
Others said they were pressured by immigration agents to board the plane without their children – and some ended up in foster care. Some, especially those who entered the United States during the Joe Biden administration, said they were told that traveling with their children would require them to be detained for months while US authorities organized their transfer.
The White House denies the systematic separation of families and says Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) offers parents the option to leave with their children. DHS spokeswoman Tricia McLaughlin said the agency “does not separate families,” and that if parents do not travel with their children, the children will be placed with adults who designate them.
Despite this, many of them returned to Venezuela on their own. Nicolas Maduro’s government turned the case into a political banner, denouncing the United States and trying to locate the children. The families participated in official events, recorded emotional videos, and even sent a message asking for help to the First Lady of the United States, Melania Trump.
Jimary Jose Paz said she was pressured by agents to be deported without her 9-year-old son, Jose Daniel, after being detained in Boston. She stated that she had heard that the boy, who lives with his aunt, could have a “better future” in the United States of America. He chose deportation in July. But a spokeswoman for the US Department of Homeland Security refutes this information and says that the Venezuelan requested his deportation on his own. The boy was sent to Venezuela after only two months.
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Other parents said they never had a choice or were given incorrect information. One mother said she boarded the plane thinking her son would be on the plane, which did not happen. More than 17,000 Venezuelans have been deported this year, according to Caracas.
The cases analyzed by the American newspaper show that many parents were detained during immigration inspections, checkpoints, or after traffic violations in states that cooperate with the immigration agency, such as Texas and Georgia.
Just as US citizens who commit crimes can be separated from their families, the same thing happens with illegal aliens, McLaughlin said.
In recent months, Venezuelan families have begun gathering at Simón Bolívar International Airport in Caracas, waiting for flights with children returning to their homeland. Among them is the Carolina daisy. She was arrested in April for, she says, mistakenly entering a checkpoint, and is challenging Department of Homeland Security charges that she entered and left the United States through the Mexican border when she was arrested.
-Do you think I will leave the United States? To Mexico? – he wondered.
While in detention, Emmanuel lived alone, sleeping on a mattress on the floor and using inhalers to treat chronic asthma. After that, she went to live with an acquaintance who was paid US$400 (R$2,140) a week to keep, an amount that forced her to borrow money. Now, after nearly seven months of separation, the little boy has arrived in Caracas. When he saw his mother in the crowd, he ran and jumped into her arms. The two fell together on the sofa in the international terminal, in a touching embrace.