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Mother, Daughter Reunite In San Antonio Before Court Ordered Deadline

Bonnie Petrie | Texas Public Radio
Christhel Nohelia Barahona Sanchéz and her mother Sandra were reunited after being separated at the border in June."

The court-ordered deadline for the Trump administration to reunite the parents of more than 2,500 children taken from their parents was Thursday. One mother and daughter, separated in June, were reunited this week and spent deadline day receiving help at Catholic Charities in San Antonio.

When Sandra Elizabeth Sanchéz and her 15-year-old daughter Christhel Nohelia Barahona Sanchéz traveled from Honduras to the U.S.-Mexico border, they hoped to go to Washington State to be with another of Sanchez’s daughters. That is not what happened. Sanchez said when they arrived at the border, she and her daughter were separated and detained.

Credit Bonnie Petrie | Texas Public Radio
Christhel Nohelia Barahona Sanchéz, 15, cried as she recalled her time in detention, apart from her mother.

“They took away my daughter. I worried so much. I feel so much guilt. I suffered so much,” Sanchez said, whose interview was translated. “I begged to God on my knees that the day would come when I would be with my child. It’s so hard.”

It was hard for Christhel, too. She didn’t know where her mother was.

“Sometimes I talked with the woman who was handling my case, and I’d ask her if I could talk with my mother. They never let me talk with her,” Christhel said.

She and Sanchez were together Thursday at Catholic Charities in San Antonio. Sanchez, 44, looked exhausted and sad. Christel seemed alert in a way most teens aren’t. Her right foot tapped quietly as her mother spoke, and her brown eyes pooled with tears as she heard her story.

When Sanchez was detained, desperation quickly set in. Not only did she not know where her daughter was but her location kept changing.

“They didn’t have us in one place,” Sanchez said. “We had friends in one location, then they transferred to another place; my friends were crying; we were crying. Then we’d make other friends, and they would separate us again, always.

“When I left the last place, I left my friends, and they cried. They asked me, ‘Pray to God, Doña Sandra, so that we can get out of here.’ Yes, I said. We must always pray to God because God is always with us.”

Credit Bonnie Petrie | Texas Public Radio
Christhel Nohelia Barahona Sanchéz looks for clothes at Catholic Charities. She and her mother were recently reunited, and she will stay with her sister in Washington State.

Christhel turned 15 in detention, on June 15, without her mother. Someone managed to get her a cake. She says that made her happy, though she would have preferred her family there.

Then, on Wednesday, Sanchez was taken from her detainment center. She thought it was another move. She was asked to do some paperwork, and then someone gave her a handkerchief.

“I thought it was to clean myself. The official told me, ‘No, you’re going to need that.’ I didn’t know my daughter was there. They took us to an office, and I saw my daughter sitting there. I hugged her and cried,” Sanchez said.

Mother and daughter were happy and relieved to have been reunited, and the first words Sanchez said when she got her daughter back in her arms seem to linger in the air over this reunion.

“Chris, forgive me because I didn’t know what we were getting into,” Sanchez told her daughter. “I made her suffer in bringing her with me. ‘Forgive me,’ I told her. It was not my intention.”

According to government numbers released after the deadline, more than 700 children remain separated from parents.

Bonnie Petrie can be reached at Bonnie@TPR.org and on Twitter at @kbonniepetrie.