周二，桑德拉·奥尔蒂斯近四年来第一次拥抱了她的儿子布莱恩。重聚是在同一个入境点圣思多罗进行的，在那里她被驱逐出境并与儿子分开。
那天晚上晚些时候，来自洪都拉斯的母亲梅布尔在一次家庭聚会上让她的儿子宋旻浩和埃里克大吃一惊，三年多来第一次把他们锁在一个含泪的集体拥抱中。
这些家庭是第一批被组织统一与拜登政府的家庭团聚工作组合作。他们也是前总统统治下成千上万离散家庭中的两个唐纳德·特朗普美国的“零容忍”政策旨在阻止非法的移居。
“感觉像做梦一样。我当时在车里——好像这一切终于发生了。经过这么长时间，我真的要和她团聚了，”布莱恩说。
当他们逃离墨西哥的卡特尔暴力时，他的母亲在边境被捕。布莱恩最初被安置在政府机构，但后来一直和哥哥姐姐住在加州。
在许多情况下，像奥特罗拉多和移民维权法律中心这样的组织多年来一直在努力寻找墨西哥和中美洲的父母。拜登白宫表示，特朗普政府几乎没有给他们留下关于许多家庭的信息。
四个家庭将于本周团聚，预计接下来的几周会有更多家庭团聚。倡导者一直在与拜登政府合作，给予父母临时的人道主义保护，但他们是否会被授予永久身份的问题仍然存在。
梅布尔的姓氏因隐私被隐瞒，在被驱逐回洪都拉斯之前，她在移民和海关执法局被拘留了两年，洪都拉斯正是她因暴力而逃离的国家。拉斯美洲移民倡导中心帮助她和她的儿子们团聚，他们自从分开后就一直和祖母住在费城。
“我爱你，”她告诉她的儿子们，亲戚们围着他们哭着拥抱着。
随着这些团聚开始慢慢到来，让其余在边境被撕裂的家庭团聚的艰巨挑战笼罩着寻找他们的倡导者。到目前为止，拜登政府已经确认了1000多个仍然分居的家庭。
After being separated at border, long-awaited family reunifications underway during Biden administration
Sandra Ortiz hugged her son Bryan for the first time in nearly four years on Tuesday. The reunion came at the very same port of entry, San Ysidro, where she was deported and separated from her son.
Later that night, Mabel, a mother from Honduras surprised her sons, Mino and Erick, at a family gathering and locked them in a tearful group hug for the first time in over three years.
These families are among the first tobe reunited by organizationsworking with the Biden administration's Family Reunification Taskforce. They're also two of the thousands of families that were separated under former PresidentDonald Trump's "zero-tolerance" policy that wasaimed at deterring illegalimmigration.
"It feels like a dream. I was in the car – like this is finally happening. I'm really going to be reunified with her after all this time," said Bryan.
His mom was apprehended at the border as they fled cartel violence in Mexico. Bryan was initially placed in a government facility, but has since been living with older siblings in California.
In many cases, organizations like Al Otro Lado and Immigrant Defenders Law Center have been working for years to locate parents throughout Mexico and Central America. The Biden White House says the Trump administration left them little to no information about many of the families.
Four families are set to be reunited this week with more expected in the following weeks. Advocates have been working with the Biden administration to grant parents a temporary humanitarian protection, but questions still remain if they will be granted permanent status.
Mabel, whose last name is being withheld for privacy, spent two years in Immigrations and Customs Enforcement detention before she was deported back to Honduras, the very country she fled because of violence. Las Americas Immigrant Advocacy Center helped reunite her with her sons, who have been living with their grandmother in Philadelphia since they were separated.
"I love you," she told her sons as relatives surrounded them crying and embracing one another.
As these reunions start to trickle in slowly, the daunting challenge of reuniting the rest of the families that were torn away at the border looms over the advocates who search for them. So far the Biden administration has identified more than 1,000 families that remain separated.
