“My Six Year-Old Son Always Asks Why All His Friends Are With Their Dads, But Not Him.”

Biden Administration Must Reunite ALL Families Separated by Deportation

Cincinnati, OH – “My six year-old son always asks why all his friends are with their dads, but not him.”

Fatima Sow is bearing too much, alone, after her husband’s deportation to Mauritania in 2018. The couple’s youngest child has severe medical issues requiring extensive therapy, hospital stays, and lengthy medical appointments. At nearly two years old, he still cannot walk or talk. 

For four years, Fatima has been trying to do it all, as one person, on a part-time income. “My kids always ask about their father,” she writes in a message to the Biden administration, submitted at the invitation of the Interagency Task Force on the Reunification of Families, ”It’s hard and painful to witness. They always see their friends with their fathers and always ask me why can’t they have their daddy with them. It’s hurtful to see.” 

But it doesn’t have to be this way. 

Fatima and other members of #ReuniteUS submitted a total of 148 comments to the federal government, responding to a notice for comment “Identifying Recommendations To Support the Work of the Interagency Task Force on the Reunification of Families.” The Ohio Immigrant Alliance also submitted policy recommendations, and various organizations working to protect children in the U.S. included the need for return of deported parents in their proposal.

#ReuniteUS is a group of people who were callously deported from the United States by prior administrations and want to return to their families, homes, and lives they once led.  OHIA interviewed more than 250 people as part of this effort, and reported out specific steps the Biden administration can take, on its own, to reunite more American families: from enhancing existing avenues for return to redirecting tax dollars from cruelty and incarceration toward protecting human dignity. Consistent with the Department of Homeland Security’s recent commitment to people who have been rendered stateless, OHIA also recommends “people who were deported to countries that do not recognize them as citizens should be brought back to the United States and issued U.S. travel and work documents.”

“Families should not be destabilized and dissolved because the U.S. government has the power to do so. The cruelty should never be the point. Facilitating the return of people who were deported would be an act of love, grace, and dignity for these families, individuals, and communities… In doing so, the Biden administration would replace cruelty with compassion; harm with healing. Rather than forgotten, families would be restored as we work toward systemic reform,” OHIA concludes.

To speak to individuals and families who are part of the #ReuniteUS campaign, contact the Ohio Immigrant Alliance at ltramonte@ohioimmigrant.org.

Submit your own public comment here, in an effort led by OHIA and the National Immigrant Justice Center. The deadline to submit comments is January 24, 2022, 11:59pm ET.

For more information and articles about #ReuniteUS, click here.