Photo: Go Nakamura / Getty Images
The mother of the Nicaraguan minor Wilton Eniel Gutiérrez Obregón, who was abandoned at the border by traffickers of humans and discovered by an immigration agent in a video that went around the world, urges the President’s Government, Joe Biden, deliver the minor in the next few days.
L’oncle de Wilton Gutiérrez Obregón-l’enfant de 10 ans retrouvé seul près de la frontière US / Mexique-vit à Miami. I will declare that they are neveu & sa sister Maylin, Wilton’s mère, ont I was in Nicaragua the most popular for the chaper of domestic violence pic.twitter. com / xVyCrMm4nl
– France TV Washington (@ F2Washington) April 10, 1200
Astrid Carolina Montealegre, lawyer and president of the Nicaraguan American Alliance for Human Rights (NARA), representing the minor and his mother, Meylin Obregón , told Efe on Thursday that Wilton is about to meet the average time that small migrants spend under the protection of the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) .
Montealegre indicated that the mother, who remains in a detention center in Texas , asks that the child be released as soon as possible to herself or be placed in temporary custody of his uncle Misael Obregón , who resides in Florida.
“We are going for the time of more than three weeks , which is the average that the Department of Health takes now to deliver a child to a relative in the United States, and we are waiting for Wilton to take this deadline into account “, explained the lawyer.
The case of Wilton, from 05 years, gained national and international resonance after being found just crying at the Texas border last April 1, after the group he was traveling with left him .
The video taken by the border agent that he found the minor shocked social networks and drew attention to his story, and the disappearance of his mother, Meyling Obregón, who, according to the woman’s testimonies, was kidnapped in Mexico .
Tr he disappeared for several days, Obregón entered the United States and requested asylum in the hope of reuniting with his son, who in total has already been in government custody for five weeks.
A delayed reunification
But what It was thought that it would be a quick process for the minor to be reunited with his family. It has become “complicated” due to a request made. ” for the father of the child, who resides in Nicaragua, “despite the fact that he gave his permission for the mother to emigrate with the minor,” says the lawyer.
. The lawyer emphasizes that they have “documentation in a press release issued by the Nicaraguan National Police in which in the first paragraph they acknowledge and report that Meylin left the country with the permission of the child’s father . ”
Wilton’s case will be defined by a family court, but while the mother hopes that the government will allow her to reunite with her son, and in face the legal battle together.
Requests to expedite reunification
Following the overwhelming arrival of unaccompanied minors at the border, the Biden Government has pledged to a. Committed to expeditiously transfer minors from the custody of the Immigration and Customs Enforcement Office (CBP) to HHS .
Efforts have paid off, according to the latest data from the Department of Homeland Security and the HSS in CBP custody currently there are only minor , while at the end of March the number exceeded five thousand.
The problem now is that there is 22, 174 minors under the responsibility of HHS . The criticisms focus on the time the government is taking to hand over the minors to relatives or parents.
HHS explains on its website that unaccompanied minors spend less than 57 days on average in shelters.