A 10-Year-Old With Down Syndrome Has Been Separated From Her Family at the Border

Mexico’s foreign minister brought the case to the public’s attention Tuesday.

Mother Jones illustration; Chris Kleponis/CNP/ZUMA; U.S. Customs and Border Protection/AP

Fight disinformation: Sign up for the free Mother Jones Daily newsletter and follow the news that matters.

Mexico is understandably angry about the Trump administration’s controversial “tear families apart” plan.

“We strongly urge the U.S. government to reconsider this policy,” Mexican Foreign Minister Luis Videgaray said Tuesday, urging federal authorities to implement measures to alleviate the traumatic conditions of some 2,000 children held in U.S. facilities without their parents. He called the Trump administration policies “cruel and inhumane.”

But please continue reading, because it gets worse:

“There’s one particular heartbreaking case,” Mr. Videgaray said, referring to a ten-year-old girl with [Down] syndrome who was recently separated from her mother and 10-year old brother as they attempted to enter the U.S. The girl was sent to a facility in McAllen, while her mother was sent to Brownsville.

“We are working to release the girl, so she can reunite with her father,” who is a legal U.S. resident, Mr. Videgaray added.

The United States is a shining city on a hill that if you approach will kidnap your disabled child and detain her an hour away.

Update, June 20, 2018: US Customs and Border Protection released a statement about the case on Wednesday, saying that the mother of the 10-year-old with Down syndrome was separated from her daughter because she is a witness in a smuggling prosecution.

AN IMPORTANT UPDATE

We’re falling behind our online fundraising goals and we can’t sustain coming up short on donations month after month. Perhaps you’ve heard? It is impossibly hard in the news business right now, with layoffs intensifying and fancy new startups and funding going kaput.

The crisis facing journalism and democracy isn’t going away anytime soon. And neither is Mother Jones, our readers, or our unique way of doing in-depth reporting that exists to bring about change.

Which is exactly why, despite the challenges we face, we just took a big gulp and joined forces with The Center for Investigative Reporting, a team of ace journalists who create the amazing podcast and public radio show Reveal.

If you can part with even just a few bucks, please help us pick up the pace of donations. We simply can’t afford to keep falling behind on our fundraising targets month after month.

Editor-in-Chief Clara Jeffery said it well to our team recently, and that team 100 percent includes readers like you who make it all possible: “This is a year to prove that we can pull off this merger, grow our audiences and impact, attract more funding and keep growing. More broadly, it’s a year when the very future of both journalism and democracy is on the line. We have to go for every important story, every reader/listener/viewer, and leave it all on the field. I’m very proud of all the hard work that’s gotten us to this moment, and confident that we can meet it.”

Let’s do this. If you can right now, please support Mother Jones and investigative journalism with an urgently needed donation today.

payment methods

AN IMPORTANT UPDATE

We’re falling behind our online fundraising goals and we can’t sustain coming up short on donations month after month. Perhaps you’ve heard? It is impossibly hard in the news business right now, with layoffs intensifying and fancy new startups and funding going kaput.

The crisis facing journalism and democracy isn’t going away anytime soon. And neither is Mother Jones, our readers, or our unique way of doing in-depth reporting that exists to bring about change.

Which is exactly why, despite the challenges we face, we just took a big gulp and joined forces with The Center for Investigative Reporting, a team of ace journalists who create the amazing podcast and public radio show Reveal.

If you can part with even just a few bucks, please help us pick up the pace of donations. We simply can’t afford to keep falling behind on our fundraising targets month after month.

Editor-in-Chief Clara Jeffery said it well to our team recently, and that team 100 percent includes readers like you who make it all possible: “This is a year to prove that we can pull off this merger, grow our audiences and impact, attract more funding and keep growing. More broadly, it’s a year when the very future of both journalism and democracy is on the line. We have to go for every important story, every reader/listener/viewer, and leave it all on the field. I’m very proud of all the hard work that’s gotten us to this moment, and confident that we can meet it.”

Let’s do this. If you can right now, please support Mother Jones and investigative journalism with an urgently needed donation today.

payment methods

We Recommend

Latest

Sign up for our free newsletter

Subscribe to the Mother Jones Daily to have our top stories delivered directly to your inbox.

Get our award-winning magazine

Save big on a full year of investigations, ideas, and insights.

Subscribe

Support our journalism

Help Mother Jones' reporters dig deep with a tax-deductible donation.

Donate