Mother and Daughter Reunited at LAX After Being Forcibly Separated

Perla De Velasquez and her daughter were separated at the U.S.-Mexico border back in June after they attempted to seek asylum in the United States. After a month apart, the pair were reunited in Los Angeles on Sunday after Perla De Velasquez took legal action against the Trump administration.

A Guatemalan woman has been reunited with her child after the two were separated a month ago while attempting to seek asylum in the United States. KTLA 5 reports that Perla De Velasquez and her 12-year-old daughter, Yoselin, had initially been separated at the Mexican border in June. De Velasquez told the outlet that she was initially informed that border agents were taking her child away to bathe her, but that officials then separated her daughter from her.

The pair were reunited on Sunday at Los Angeles International Airport (LAX), after De Velasquez took legal action against the White House. The Trump administration has come under heavy and intense criticism for its recent practice of separating families seeking asylum at the U.S.-Mexico border.

The outlet reports that, during the period of separation from her mother, Yoselin had been held at a Texas-based immigration detention facility. Nexus Services, which provided immigration assistance to the pair, said that it took a week of talks with government officials to reunite mother and daughter.

The outlet also reports that court documents record that Yoselin was “wrongly characterized by federal officials as an ‘unaccompanied’ child even though her mother had come into the U.S. with a government-issued identification card from her home country and a birth certificate showing she is Yoselin’s mother.”

The legal action also argues that, as Perla De Velasquez had already been freed on bond, there was no need to detain her daughter.

Commenting on the family’s case to the gathered press at LAX, Mario Williams, De Velasquez’s lawyer, said, “I think the most important thing to know and understand about today is that a family that never should have been separated is being reunited today, and they’re very happy to be reunited.”

It is reported that the pair will continue the process of seeking asylum in the U.S.

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