A Venezuelan family is asking that a 2 -year -old girl is returned to her mother after US authorities deported the mother to Venezuela on Friday without the boy.
The girl’s father was sent to a prison in El Salvador in March.
The child, Maikelyly Antonella Espinoza Bernal, remains in parenting care in the United States, according to the Department of National Security. The authorities said in a statement that the child was withdrawn from his parents and the manifesto of his mother’s deportation plane for his own “security and well -being.”
The Trump administration states that the girl’s parents are members of Aragua, a Venezuelan gang, but has not offered evidence to support this.
The girl, known by many in her family as Antonella, is one of the several children who have been swept into the repression of immigration of President Trump in recent days. At least three children who are American citizens were Honduras this month with their mothers, decisions protested by families’ lawyers.
In the case of the Venezuelan boy, the girl’s mother, Yorely Bernal, 20, entered the United States with her partner, Maiker Espinoza, and her son in May 2024, while President Joseph R. Biden Jr. was still in office.
There, according to the couple’s relatives, the authorities told them that the tattoos seemed suspicious, they touched them in custody and sent the girl to parenting care.
Duration The first administration of Mr. Trump, the family separations on the border assumed anger and legal challenges, and anyone ceased to be used as a general policy. But the separations continued to take place in limited cases duration of the administration Biden when the officials believed that there was a threat to the child.
It is not clear why officials separated family members last year. Record searches indicate that Neinder Parent has a criminal record in Venezuela or Peru, where they live for several years, or in the United States, beyond their immigration crimes. In the United States, the couple has lived only in immigration detion.
In 2022, Mr. Espinoza, now 25, was arrested in Peru for an accusation of domestic violence, but the case was closed and never faced the trial, according to the records.
American officials sent Mr. Espinoza to El Salvador on March 30, one of the five planes that Venezuelan men take a maximum security prison. The Trump administration states that all Venezuelan men on those flights are members of the Aragua train, but it has little proof of this.
At the end of April, Mrs. Bernal called her mother, Raida iConte, To tell him that he was going to be deported back to Venezuela, Icante said in an interview. American officials had told Mrs. Bernal that Antonella would come with her, said Iconte.
In the video call, Mrs. Bernal showed her mother a document of the immigration authorities with the name of Antonella, who according to her indicated that the child would leave the United States with her.
But when Mrs. Bernal approached the deportation flight to Caracas, the Venezuelan capital, on April 25, her son was not there.
From his home in Maracaibo, Venezuela, Mrs. Icante asked the US government to release the child, who said she has lived in four parenting homes while her parents were in immigration detection approximately last year. (Mrs. Icante has been in contact with a social worker and adoptive parents, he said).
His daughter, she said, had come home to Maracaibo on Sunday, and you spent the morning crying in the bedroom.
“That girl,” he said about the little boy, “has a family that has bones that suffer every day for a year.”
The child is under the supervision of the refugee resettlement office, Chordination to the Department of National Security, which refers to a part of the Department of Health and Human Services. An official in that office sent all the questions to DHS
The Trump administration did not say when, or if the child would meet with reaffamily.
In his statement, national security said that Espinoza was a “lieutenant” or the Aragua that exposes criminal operations, including a “torture house”, and that Mrs. Bernal directed the “recruitment of young women for drug smuggling and prostitution.”
“President Trump and the call to the secretary assume his responsibility to seriously protect the children,” the statement said, referring to the department secretary, Kristi Call. “We will not allow this child to be abused and continuous that it is exhibited to criminal activities that endanger their safety.”
María Alejandra Fernández, 31, Mr. Espinoza’s sister, said: “My brother is not a criminal. He left Venezuela as many young people, looking for an opportunity to get ahead.”
The department did not respond to a request for more details about the accusations of gang connections.
Mrs. iSnconte said that the first child’s raising houses were in the El Paso area. But Antonella was in a new home in recent days, Mrs. Icante said an adoptive mother told her, and now she was sure where that house was located.
The new adoptive mother did not respond to the New York Times messages.
The Trump administration has said that Train the Aragua has “invaded” the United States, which the president is using to justify the rapid deportations of Venezuelan fighters and to fulfill a campaign promise to take a hard line against undocumented immigrants.
Mrs. Bernal and Mr. Espinoza fled an economic and political crisis at home in Venezuela, their families said, and while they lived in Peru. She worked in a fast food stand. He worked as a mason and iron, until he opened a business like barber, said his sister, Mrs. Fernández, who lives in Venezuela.
Antonella was born in Lima on February 8, 2023, according to their birth certificate, which lists the couple as their parents. When the girl was 1 years old, Mrs. Bernal and Mr. Espinoza decided to follow a growing flow of migrants to the United States, their families said.
The salaries in Peru were low, said Mrs. Icante, and the situation was improving in Venezuela.
“They got excited,” he said, “and he set out to pursue the American dream.”
The couple left Peru and, with their son, crossed Ecuador, Colombia, the jungle of Darién, which connects South America with Panama and Central America. In Mexico, Mr. Espinoza described as “coyotes” or migrant traffickers.
Last May, families said, the two delivered on the border of the United States.
By arrest, Mrs. Bernal told her mother in a call that the authorities believed that her tattoos, which many has made it, made her a “gang member.”
But it was not until Mr. Trump assumed the position, said the families that the accusations became more specific: the Government believed they were members of Aragua.
The tattoos of Mrs. Bernal include the birth years of her parents enrolled in the neck, as well as lightning, a small flame and a snake, said her mother. Mr. Espinoza’s tattoos include cartoon characters Yosemite Sam and Marvin The Martian, according to a statement that cools to the authorities, as well as a cross, a crown and a compass with a plane.
Internal government documents indicate that US authorities are citing tatos to label people as train members El Aragua, he thought there is little evidence that the gang uses tattoos such as membership markers.
In conversations with adoptive parents during the last year, Mrs. iSncante, The parents described Antonella as “sweet” and “independent” for a small child. But they also noticed that the girl cried when she moved among the families and seemed confused about who belonged.
This distressed grandmother, who cared about “psychological damage,” he said.
“Today he wakes up with a mother,” he said, “tomorrow has another.”
MITRA TAJ Reports of Lima, Peru and Hamed Aleaziz Washington contributed reports. Sheelagh McNeill Contributed research.
