For some, Florida is the only home they’ve ever known.
The small figures huddled together at Miami International Airport carried backpacks, stuffed animals and three suitcases. One wore a silver cross necklace.
Families of the seven travelers – ages 3 to 15 – have been torn apart this year by the Trump Administration’s deportation campaign. The children left the United States on Thursday for a new life in the mountains of Guatemala. For some, Florida is the only home they’ve ever known.
Three of the children are U.S. citizens; the other four grew up in Lake Worth Beach, Palm Beach County, long home to a large Guatemalan community.
They are among 58 children that the Guatemala-Maya Center, a local social service agency, has helped reunite with their parents in Guatemala this year. Staff said that they have organized power-of-attorney documents for 200 other children, whose parents are worried about what will happen if they are detained.
“Separating a child from their parents is not a lesson for anyone, there are no winners in doing it,” said Diego Serrato, who accompanied the kids to Guatemala City with his wife, a University of Miami employee. “The only losers are the children.”
The couple volunteered to chaperone the children on their flight – because they have two young daughters of their own.
As President Donald Trump carries out a mass deportation campaign, families have been caught in the middle, and parents facing detention or deportation are making difficult decisions about how best to care for their children, many of whom are U.S. citizens.
Asked how Homeland Security is protecting children when their parents are detained or deported, DHS Assistant Secretary Tricia McLaughlin told the Herald in an emailed statement that “ICE does not separate families.”
“Parents are asked if they want to be removed with their children or ICE will place the children with a safe person the parent designates. This is consistent with past administration’s immigration enforcement,” McLaughlin said. “Parents who are here illegally can take control of their family’s departure with the CBP Home App. The United States is offering illegal aliens $1,000 and a free flight to self-deport now.”
“We encourage every person here illegally to take advantage of this offer and reserve the chance to come back to the U.S. the right legal way to live American dream [sic]. If not, you will be arrested and deported without a chance to return,” she said.
In Lake Worth Beach, arrests have been non-stop.
Christopher McVoy, city commissioner for District 2 of Lake Worth Beach, said he has yet to see evidence that officers are arresting violent criminals or gang members. Florida Highway Patrol did not have much of a presence in Lake Worth before this year – but now he sees them regularly parked on the street.
And the deportations are leaving families and children without breadwinners, he said, or the funds to cover their bills.
“A large part of our population is at risk, and living in fear,” McVoy said. “Hoping for the best, but afraid. And it’s hard not to be, once you become aware of how often these raids are happening.”
At the American Airlines check-in desk, the children were waiting at 10am, as their chaperones gathered their boarding passes, identification and passports. Each of their flights had cost between $370 and $560, which the Guatemala-Maya Center paid through fundraising.
When they reached security for Terminal D, Mariana Blanco, the director of operations at the center, pulled the children together in a circle. She told them to charge their phones; the oldest to hold the hands of the toddlers; and to say goodbye to their relatives.
The children walked hand-in-hand, following Serrato and his wife, Luisa Gutiérrez.
“It’s a sad, cruel moment,” Blanco said, crying as she watched them leave. “Especially for the children who have to decide between going with one parent, and leaving the other behind.”
Blanco said that five children had one or both parents deported; one child’s father is still detained; and one girl’s father chose to send her, for fear he too would be detained.
Andres Osvaldo picked up his nephew, 6-year-old Andy, when Florida Highway Patrol detained his father driving home from school. At the airport on Thursday, Osvaldo pulled Andy into a hug before he left. The Herald is identifying the children by first name only because they are minors.
Enrique’s father is in a detention center in Louisiana, after officers arrested him on his way to work. Enrique, 13, is returning to his mother in Guatemala, who he hasn’t seen since he was 4.
In manila folders, Blanco held the children’s documents and notes about what happened to their parents.
Franklin, 3, and Garibaldi, 6, are the only siblings. Both born in Florida, they held hands and wore matching backpacks that were nearly as big as them. Franklin carried a stuffed animal wearing a Santa hat and himself wore a Spider-Man shirt.
Their father was deported, Blanco said. Their mother works six days a week, 6 a.m. to 9 p.m., at a local nursery. Unable to care for them alone, and afraid of being detained herself, she chose to send the children to their father.
Alexis, 11, has been staying with a family friend after his father and step-mother were both deported a couple weeks ago, Blanco said. His mother lives in Guatemala and he hasn’t seen her in eight years. At the airport he wore a stuffed monkey he got at Target wrapped around his neck.
The oldest of the group, Areimy, is 15. Her father was deported and her mother is in Guatemala.
Her cousin, Mariela, 11, traveled with her. Mariela’s father was taking care of both girls, but chose to send them to Guatemala, afraid he could soon be detained.
Blanco said the children had mixed feelings – most were excited to see their parents again, others were sad to leave behind a parent, others were just confused about why they were leaving.
When they arrived in Guatemala City around 2:40pm local time, family members were waiting outside with balloons, running to hug the children in tears. Serrato shared videos of the reunion with the Herald.
“So sad for the situation,” Serrato texted the Herald, adding that the children had all been reunited with relatives. “But it’s a new beginning with their families.”
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