Immigration authorities separated Vilma Carrillo—a domestic violence survivor whose asylum application has been denied—from her young daughter in May, shortly after their arrival at the United States border, where Carrillo applied for asylum. In July, when a federal judge ruled that all separated families had to be reunited, Carrillo, together with a group of other immigrant mothers, was transferred to Texas, where she awaited reunification with her daughter. But upon discovering that her daughter was a U.S. citizen—and therefore unable to be detained together with her mother—Carrillo was returned to a Georgia detention facility empty-handed. Her daughter remains in foster custody in Arizona.
Carrillo's 11-year-old daughter was born in Georgia, but as an infant, her family returned to their native Guatemala. After suffering life-threatening beatings at the hands of her husband, Carrillo returned to the U.S. to apply for asylum. On one occasion, Carrillo's husband punched her in the face so hard that it shattered four front teeth.
In August, an immigration judge heard and denied Carrillo's case for asylum. Carrillo was unable to present the judge her initial asylum declaration and documents offering support for her claims of abuse, because authorities had kept them locked away in the backpack used to transfer detainees' belongings between facilities. Immigration and Customs Enforcement only returned Carrillo's backpack containing her documents to her after her asylum claim was denied.
[For more on this story by MASSOUD HAYOUN, go to https://psmag.com/social-justi...-us-citizen-daughter]
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