Asylum-seeker says officer taunted parents with 'It’s Mother’s Day' before taking their children
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Campaign Action “G.A.” should have spent his seventh birthday surrounded by his excited friends, but instead he spent it in U.S. custody, a young victim of the Trump administration’s barbaric “zero tolerance” policy. His mom Victoria was in a sepaAsylum-seeker says officer taunted parents with 'It’s Mother’s Day' before taking their children
Campaign Action “G.A.” should have spent his seventh birthday surrounded by his excited friends, but instead he spent it in U.S. custody, a young victim of the Trump administration’s barbaric “zero tolerance” policy. His mom Victoria was in a separate facility thousands of miles away. “She spent the day crying and thinking that her little boy was somewhere turning seven, all by himself,” a court filing states. They would not be reunited for another two and a half months. The asylum-seeker is now one of the families seeking millions in damages. Victoria recounts a traumatic journey from the moment she and her son were detained at the southern border in California last May, saying that border officers would only allow her and other detained mothers to see their children at night. Then one day an officer took them away completely. “Don’t cry today, today is a happy day,” he taunted. “It’s Mother’s Day.” Victoria witnessed one mom having her child physically ripped from her arms. Then G.A. was taken “without any words of comfort and without the slightest show of compassion.” Victoria would then spend weeks without any information about G.A., until she was allowed to talk to him on the phone in late June. The moment he heard her voice, the filing states, he began to cry. “The social worker said that G.A. was not eating and would not get out of bed. He spent all his time crying.” A second call a week later went no better. They would not be reunited for another month, in Texas. They were eventually released after Victoria passed her initial asylum interview, but not before spending months more in a family jail. Read more