They hadn't seen each other for two and a half years.
For this reason, when 13-year-old Jennifer Isabel Ramos Aguilar was reunited with her mother and three brothers at the Houston International Airport at the end of June, she gave them a more than effusive hug.
Between tears, words of affection and the gaze of travelers who stopped to witness the moment, the hug grew stronger.
"We are together, you are here,"
her mother, Nancy Ramos, repeated between sobs, perhaps evoking the difficult moments that the minor faced when crossing the border alone on March 19 of this year or, worse still, when she found out that her daughter tried to kill herself in a shelter when she was almost two months after turning herself in to immigration authorities in Brownsville, Texas.
[The Biden Administration threatens to sue Texas if it continues with its plan to close shelters for undocumented minors]
Jenifer, the second of four siblings, left Honduras on February 25 of this year accompanied by a small group of people.
He toured Guatemala in one day and was in Mexico for more than a week.
He arrived at the Texas border on March 19 "and I turned myself in to the Border Patrol."
His first 16 days were spent in the saturated tents of the Donna, Texas detention center, the focus of media criticism at the time for exceeding the capacity limit of people.
She thought that her mother would come to pick her up soon, because she lived in that state.
He never imagined that he
would have to wait four months, first in that detention center and then in two shelters located in three different states,
and he would travel the country from one end to the other.
The reunion of Jenifer Ramos (center, in black shirt), 13, with her mother Nancy Ramos and her brothers Gabriela (left), 9, David, 5, and Anderson, 16, at George Bush Intercontinental Airport in Houston, Texas, June 25, 2021. José Luis Castillo
“Sometimes the food they gave us was already expired and when you felt bad, they told us 'drink water, drink water and drink water'.
If you fainted there, they said it was a lie, "says the minor who
contracted COVID-19
in Texas.
She says she slept on a mattress with six other girls in an open but fenced space, cold, smelly, and that they
were woken up at dawn with a kick to take roll
.
"That place was very ugly," he recalls.
The smallest
came at the time when the highest number of crossings of
unaccompanied
children
of the fiscal year was registered: 17,148 in April 2021, almost double compared to January of the same year when 9,429 were counted, according to figures from the Department of Security. National.
[Trump signed executive order so that cities and states can reject refugees]
The massive arrival of minors to detention centers, which are administered by Customs and Border Protection (CBP) - where they can only stay for a maximum period of 72 hours, with few exceptions - saturated capacity of available beds and for that reason they had to stay longer, as happened to Jennifer.
At least that's what Mark Greenberg, director of the Human Services Initiative with the Washington-based Immigration Policy Institute, deduces.
According to the account, the alternative that the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) looked for due to the large number of minors was
to start up emergency admission shelters.
"They are quickly installed in auditoriums, coliseums, warehouses or spaces with tents in order to carry out the transfer of minors so that they are not still under the supervision of CBP, but they do not meet the requirements of the program," explains Greenberg, Former Assistant Director of the HHS Administration for Children and Families during the last three years of the Barack Obama Administration.
Biden Administration Allows Cameras to Enter Donna, Texas, Migrant Juvenile Center
March 31, 202103: 24
In other circumstances, minors like Jenifer, Greenberg explains, would have been relocated to shelters regulated by the state government that have staff trained in medical and mental health services, educators and access to legal services.
"I wanted to hurt myself"
On April 2, Jenifer was transferred from Donna's camp to a temporary shelter for minors 1,500 miles away at the San Diego, California convention center, set up to house girls ages 13 to 17, ages 30 to 35. days maximum.
Jennifer remained 53 days in that place.
[This is how this refuge in Tijuana is for Mexicans displaced by violence who are awaiting asylum in the US]
During her first week in San Diego, Jenifer was in quarantine for a health measure, with little contact with the other girls, to prevent the spread of the coronavirus.
Then "I was able to socialize."
Three weeks later, facing the uncertainty of his future and
not having communication with his mother, anxiety and depression began to interfere with his emotional state
.
She was admitted to a hospital in the mental health area for three days.
“And then I had a relapse and I wanted to hurt myself.
He wanted to cut me off and he wanted to kill the other girls because I heard voices in my head, ”recalls Jenifer.
"Many memories came to me and I thought that I was not going to leave there because I always saw the other girls who left San Diego, who were already going with their parents
, and I stayed there, and sometimes it made me sad," he
says. .
Jenifer Ramos (left), 13, with her mother, Nancy Ramos, at George Bush Intercontinental Airport in Houston, Texas.
The minor left Honduras on February 25, 2021, and arrived in Texas on March 19, 2021. Mother and daughter were only able to meet again on June 25, 2021. José Luis Castillo
From that moment on, things changed.
The minor was under 24-hour medical supervision, received therapy and, after almost two months since she arrived in the country, she was able to communicate by phone with her mother
, who found out what happened because her daughter told her.
[Pressure Mounts for Immigration Reform That Will Give Millions of Immigrants a Path to Citizenship]
"And days after speaking with the girl [the authorities] contacted me to tell me what had happened," recalls Ramos.
"Imagine that mom is not going to react when they tell her that about her daughter."
Greenberg suggests that, due to the informality with which these emergency centers, such as the one in San Diego, were set up, certain basic rules were not applied, such as the right to a minimum of two phone calls a week with a family member, either in the country or abroad, as established by the regulations of the Office of Refugee Resettlement (ORR, in English).
"
There are similar cases that are repeated, of parents who do not know the whereabouts of their children and of minors who do not know what is happening,"
says the expert.
Nancy Ramos kisses her daughter Jenifer Ramps, 13, in the apartment where they live in Houston, Texas.
Jose Luis Castillo
Long-term trauma
Jenifer says that in the temporary shelter she preferred to isolate herself from the other children,
partly because of her concern about her situation, but also because of the medications she was taking: an antidepressant and an anxiolytic
.
The first, Zoloft, indicated for the treatment of major depressive disorder in adults, and the second, Atarax, for the symptomatic treatment of anxiety in adults.
According to
Elizabeth Barnert
, a pediatrician and university professor with the University of California at Los Angeles, who specializes in research on the separation of minors during the civil war in El Salvador, processing this trauma is going to be a difficult path that will accompany Jennifer all her life. life.
"She will remember that episode during adolescence, when she is an adult, when she gets married, when she has children, it will be forever,"
says Barnert, who is also part of the Puente ADN scientific project, which seeks to identify and locate, through DNA , to families separated from their children either in armed conflicts, disasters or due to migratory displacement.
[Trump launched another hitherto hidden program to separate families at the border as soon as he arrived at the White House]
The solution, according to Barnert, would be to live in "a fairer world", but the process of separation of minors leaves consequences for the feeling of abandonment, guilt for the separation, depression, suicidal thoughts and uncertainty because "they do not understand what is happening" .
Barnert criticizes the spending of public resources made by the Government, "which was not prepared to receive so many children", by transferring a minor like Jennifer from one state to another instead of having
accelerated the process and leaving her in Texas where her family lives. mother.
Nancy Ramos, from Honduras, with her 13-year-old daughter Jenifer Ramos.
Jose Luis Castillo
"We can use the money for more important things, for example, the education of this girl, of her community," the specialist clarifies.
[Follow all the news related to immigration]
Susana Rivera, director of the Border Traumatic Stress Response Center, located in Laredo, Texas, offers therapies through counseling to immigrant minors for more than two decades, and according to her,
the extreme cases in which minors try to harm themselves are common
and should be viewed as a serious public health problem.
"It is not easy to understand at that age that they cannot be with their parents or mothers, or with their little brothers, or when they ask 'why did they take my father, when will I see him again, when will I be able to return home', and
no one can give you an answer.
Not even we know it,
”says Rivera.
"Then they go to extremes because they feel they have no other option," he adds.
In the Center, according to her, they also serve minors who were born in this country to deported parents who face the same dilemmas: uncertainty due to the separation that leads to a picture of depression and extreme anguish.
Alejandro Mayorkas visits the Donna, Texas migrant processing center again
May 7, 202100: 59
Rivera, as well as Barnert,
advises that children who have experienced this type of trauma be offered psychological therapies indefinitely,
since if they do not do so, the child's health could deteriorate, depending on the environment.
From California to New York
Jenifer assures that she does not regret having gone through "all that journey to be with my family", but she has certain reservations, so perhaps she advises other children who plan to travel alone
not to come to this country.
“I know that some people want to have a better future, but one also has to think about whether to do it or not, because
one in immigration suffers being in shelters.
One suffers,
”he repeats, while recalling some sadness at having left his maternal grandparents, Mira and Clemente.
They have cared for her since November 2018, when her mother, who owns a small food business, decided to leave her country due to the threats she received from extortionists who asked her for a weekly quota in exchange for not killing her.
Jenifer Ramos, 13, in the room she shares with her three brothers in Houston, Texas.
Jose Luis Castillo
Jenifer recalls that on May 25 of this year, in San Diego, she was looking forward to a scheduled video call with her mother, when she was told that she should get her few belongings ready.
"Then I thought I would finally see my mother," he
recalls.
However, she and a group of girls took a 2,700-mile flight across the country.
Jenifer was admitted to The Children's Village, a renowned shelter with nearly 170 years of experience located in New York State.
"I was in quarantine for a week, but they treated me very well," says Jenifer.
It was in that place that Ramos, who works as a cleaning lady on weekdays and as a waitress on weekends in Houston, felt that the process for reunification with her daughter was a fact and that she would soon be able to hug her, have her with her and “no never part again ”.
"At times he gets sad and cries"
Noticias Telemundo requested an interview with HHS to learn the details of the decisions they made so that minors like Jenifer remain in emergency shelters for so many weeks.
[Immigrants who were detained by ICE while pregnant "dance for joy" knowing that they will not arrest other pregnant women]
HHS replied through a statement that these places "
are intended to be temporary to facilitate the rapid transfer of custody of minors,"
and although it does not assume responsibility for delays such as Jennifer's, it does recognize that they continue to make improvements by increasing the staff "to reunite minors safely and quickly with their families."
Greenberg believes that what could have happened to Jennifer when he sent her to New York from California, is that at that time that was the only place available with the capacity to accept minors.
Jenifer was at The Children's Village for 30 days.
She arrived in Houston on June 25, accompanied by a social worker.
The youngest now lives with her mother and siblings in a two-bedroom apartment in South Houston.
She loves to read fiction and history books, and says that in August she will go to school to study, learn, win student scholarships and when she grows up to be a university literature teacher.
Jenifer Ramos (left) with her mother Nancy Ramos in the apartment located in the south of Houston, Texas, where she lives with her three brothers.
Jose Luis Castillo
"I also like to socialize a bit, but not so much because there are times that, I don't know, I don't like it, I prefer to be in my space," he says.
His journey lasted 120 days from leaving Honduras to arriving in Houston.
The hug with his mother and his brothers occurred after 967 days
(2 years, 7 months and 24 days).
Her mother, who says she is looking for a specialist so that Jennifer can follow a treatment and can continue taking her medications (Zoloft and Atarax), warns that the minor has been happy but that "at times she gets sad and cries inconsolably".
The national phone number for the suicide prevention line is 1-888-628-9454. Offers free and confidential support in Spanish 24 hours a day, seven days a week.