Children separated from their families under former President Donald Trump’s administration spoke Wednesday of the fear they experienced at the time, and their worries that similar policies will be enacted if Trump returns to the White House.
Intended by the Kamala Harris campaign as a way of counter-programming Trump’s town hall with Univision Wednesday night, the children were brought out to share stories of their time in custody away from their parents after crossing the border between 2017 and 2021.
“I still have the fear of Trump being reelected, and that same thing happening to me or other kids,” Billy, who was 9 when border officials separated him and his parents, said.
“Kamala Harris helped us be together again, and she helped us be a family again, and I don’t want this to happen to any more kids.”
Main: In this photo provided by U.S. Customs and Border Protection, people who’ve been taken into custody related to cases of illegal entry into the United States, sit in one of the cages at a facility in McAllen, Texas, on June 17, 2018. Inset: former U.S. President Dondald Trump, who enforced migrant family separations while he was in the White House, and Vice President Kamala Harris, who has warned the program could come back under a second Trump presidency.
AP Photo
The event, headed by Harris campaign spokesperson Kevin Munoz and Rep. Veronica Escobar in Doral, Florida, was framed as a warning of more extreme measures on the way if Trump prevails on Nov. 5.
Hamilton, 13, said that when immigration officials took him and his siblings, they handed them a foil blanket to sleep with. After six days, they were told to take a shower and then their mother was taken away.
“We started to cry, and then they took us,” he said. “We flew to New York, and then we didn’t really know what was happening. If we were gonna see our mother again.”
Another, Adriana, spoke of being held in “la hierla”, or “ice box”, where there was no bed for her and her mother to sleep on before they were separated. Many migrants were kept in areas which became known as cages while the policy was in effect.
“I started crying because we thought we were never gonna see each other again,” Adriana said, adding that she did not see her mom for three years. “But then Kamala Harris helped me and my parents get back together.”
In this photo provided by U.S. Customs and Border Protection, people who’ve been taken into custody related to cases of illegal entry into the United States rest in one of the cages at a facility in McAllen, Texas, on June 17, 2018. Thousands of children were taken from their parents at the southern border amid a crackdown on illegal crossings by the Trump administration between 2017 and 2021.
U.S. Customs and Border Protection’s Rio Grande Valley Sector via AP, File
The event was meant to highlight what is widely seen as among the least popular policies of the Trump administration. Public sentiment on immigration has since shifted rightward, and Harris polls behind Trump on issues of immigration and border security, though that gap has narrowed.
Trump’s family separation program began in spring 2017, with a test run in El Paso, Texas. It was eventually expanded along the southwest border, gaining national attention early the following year.
Despite efforts to end the program, it continued until the end of Trump administration, with around 4,000 children found to have been separated from their families. Nearly six months after President Joe Biden took office, over 2,100 were still waiting to be reunited.
The Biden administration’s Family Reunification Task Force is still working to address that gap, with the last report in April 2024 acknowledging more work was ahead.
The move by the Harris campaign on Wednesday came in conjunction with the release of a new Errol Morris documentary, Separated, that delves into the controversial policy. The film recreates scenes as the program was created behind closed doors, along with interviews with government officials who were there.
Trump has promised a tougher stance on immigration should he get a second term and has defended the controversial policy in interviews over the course of the campaign.
In a statement to Newsweek, a spokesperson for the Trump campaign did not address the past policy but blasted both Biden and Harris for keeping the border “wide open.”
“Maybe Kamala Harris should be more focused on the hundreds of thousands of children her administration has lost than attempting to lie on President Trump’s record of success.” the campaign said.
David Xol, of Guatemala hugs his son Byron at Los Angeles International Airport as they reunite after being separated about one and half years earlier during the Trump administration’s wide-scale separation of immigrant families, Wednesday, Jan. 22, 2020, in Los Angeles.
AP Photo/Ringo H.W. Chiu
Speaking at Wednesday’s briefing, Rep. Escobar said Harris was the candidate who could bring about needed change to the immigration system that Trump did not fix.
“In fact, what Donald Trump did was take a broken system and he obliterated it,” Escobar said. “He uses cruelty as American public policy.”
Escobar, who described the children who spoke on Wednesday as “courageous”, warned that a second Trump presidency would be one without the guardrails of previous advisors.
Adriana, the girl who was held in the “ice box,” delivered the Harris campaign message on immigration.
“Now me and my parents are happy living together and I don’t want Donald Trump to be President again because I don’t want any other kids to go through what I did,” she said.
