A 4-year-old girl born in New York was detained by immigration officials and then sent back to Guatemala, separating her from her parents, after she and her grandfather were stopped by customs officials earlier this month.
The girl, Emily Samantha Ruiz, is a U.S. citizen. But she, like many other ******** of undocumented immigrants, became caught in a web of complications for families with mixed legal statuses. On her way home from a trip to Guatemala with her grandfather on March 11, Emily was detained in Dulles International Airport when authorities stopped her grandfather on an ******* entry charge from more than a decade ago.
Authorities took her grandfather, a non-citizen on a valid work visa that allowed him to travel, into custody. But the young girl was detained in the airport, then sent back to Guatemala with her grandfather, citizenship notwithstanding.
Her ****** claims they were faced with a near-impossible choice by border officials: either have Emily sent to Guatemala or allow officials to put her in a juvenile facility in the United States, where she could be put in ****** care or kept away from her parents.
