Last week, the story of Estela Juarez, told during an incredibly powerful and moving video played at the DNC, made us look at the reality of immigrant family separation in the face.
Eleven-year-old Estela began her open letter to the President: “Dear Donald Trump.” She proceeded to tell us, and the President, the story of her immigrant family. Her father Temo, a naturalized American citizen from Mexico, served as a U.S. Marine in South America, Africa, and Iraq. He voted for President Trump in 2016, believing he would protect military families, Estela explained.
“Instead of protecting us, you tore our world apart,” she continued.
Her mother, Alejandra Juarez, lived in the United States as an undocumented immigrant for over 20 years. When she was 18 years old, fleeing death threats in her home country of Mexico, she crossed the U.S. Southern border. In 2000, she married Estela’s father Temo, and they settled in Central Florida and had two children. “My mom worked hard, and paid taxes,” Estela said. “The Obama administration told her she could stay.”
Under the Obama administration, Alejandra Juarez was deemed a low-priority deportation case after a traffic stop exposed her legal status. Immigration agencies hold the discretionary authority to differentiate between low and high priority targets for deportation due to the lack of sufficient resources to deport every single person without legal status in the country. Typically, high priority targets include people with criminal records or people considered a threat to national security.
But in 2018, when Estela was just nine years old, her mother was deported back to Mexico under President Trump’s “zero tolerance” policy. Her older sister, Pamela, was featured in the video tearfully adding “my mom is a good person. She’s not a criminal.”
“Mr. President, my mom is the wife of a proud American Marine, and a mother of two American children,” Estela said. “We are American families. We need a president who will bring people together, not tear them apart.”
According to data obtained by American Civil Liberties Union from the U.S. government, at least 2,654 immigrant children have been separated from their parents as a result of this administration’s policies, though the ACLU maintains doubts over the comprehensiveness and accuracy of those numbers. Estela and her sister Pamela are just two of them.
As Estela read her letter, footage of children held in detention centers, some of them visibly of toddler ages, were shown. “Every day that passes, you deport more moms and dads and take them away from kids like me. You separated thousands of children from their parents and you put them in cages. Some of those kids are now orphans because of you,” she said.
Estela’s mom Alejandra reacted to her daughter’s speech on her Facebook, saying she was so proud. “My daughter Estela called me right after her video was aired and said ‘mom you are coming home, I know you are.’” We surely hope she does.