The plight of a Guatemalan mother and her five-year-old son documented by Debbie Nathan, a journalist for The Intercept, offers a personal view of the torment and heartache that has resulted from the decision by President Donald Trump and Attorney General Jeff Sessions to rip children from their families—a practice that has generated national outrage and global condemnation.

Delia, a pseudonym provided the mother to protect her identity, told Nathan "said she'd fled Guatemala with the boy because her partner, the child's father, had been beating her, cutting her, and threatening to kill her and their son. She was looking for help in the U.S. and never imagined that her claim of domestic violence would be laughed at and mocked by the Border Patrol agents who processed her, or that she and her son would be separated amid the sound of his panicked screams. She said the Laredo detention center held several women besides her who had also been criminally charged for illegal entry and separated from their kids."

After being "tricked" by U.S. officials and separated from her son, it was six weeks before she was able—only through determination, the help of an immigration lawyer, and some luck—that she was able to track him down and then be reunited with him.

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Read the full story at The Intercept.