Family separation: Pregnant mother, daughters reunited — and detained together in Texas

Two Honduran girls who were separated from their mother at the border and held at a foster care center in New York City were reunited on Wednesday, a day before a federal judge's July 26 deadline for the Trump administration to reunite families broken up under its "zero tolerance" policy.

Now their father says that 5-year-old Serli and 9-year-old Cecia are being detained with their pregnant mother at a family detention center in South Texas.

"In one sense, I'm happy she is reunited with the kids, but it worries me at the same time," said father Hector Tejeda Santos, 32, in a Spanish-language interview. "She's been detained for almost two months, and she continues to be detained."

This family's separation made national headlines earlier this month when attorney Michael Avenatti, known for representing adult-film actress Stormy Daniels, joined activists outside the Cayuga foster care center in New York City calling for the release of Serli and Cecia. 

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Santos said the mother, Denise Santos, noticed a difference in the girls' behavior when they were reunited at the South Texas Family Residential Center in Dilley, Texas.

"Today she told me the girls aren't OK," said Santos, who is living near Houston while his asylum petition is heard. "They're rebelling. They're acting differently."

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The reunion comes a day before the Thursday deadline imposed by judge Dana Sabraw last month to reunite all children within 30 days.

More than 2,000 families have been separated under the "zero tolerance" policy ordered by Attorney General Jeff Sessions in April. The policy orders the criminal prosecution of immigrants who cross the U.S.-Mexican border without authorization and the transfer of children to the custody of Health and Human Services.

Sabraw said "zero tolerance" might violate immigrants' due process rights and ordered the reunification of families with children under 5 by July 10 and the reunification of all other children by Thursday. The government has reunited 57 of the 103 younger children with their parents so far.

The mother and two daughters' detention in Dilley may be a sign that the Trump administration is preparing to deport families before they can apply for asylum, advocates and policy experts say.

Royce Murray, policy director of the American Immigration Council, said at least 54 families have been reunited, only to be detained at the detention center in Dilley. 

"We're very concerned that Dilley and the other family detention center, Karnes, could become staging grounds for the deportation of these families, perhaps back into harm's way," Murray told reporters during a conference call Thursday morning.

Santos said he had wanted to pick up his daughters in New York but could not leave the Houston area without permission from Immigration and Customs Enforcement. The agency did not give him permission to travel.

Santos said his immigration attorney, Ricardo de Anda, declined to discuss why his family left and applied for asylum, but the family's move comes as Hondurans are fleeing gang violence in their home country.

Santos and his oldest daughter, 14-year-old Karen, entered the U.S. in January. His wife and youngest daughters entered the country months later, once the "zero tolerance" policy took effect. They were detained at the Southwest border.

Denise Santos was detained in Port Isabel Detention Center in Texas, while his girls were shipped to the Cayuga foster care center.

Santos said a fellow detainee called him on July 19 and told him his wife was supposed to leave the detention center. He expected her to be released to be reunited with the girls.

Santos didn't hear from his wife until Tuesday after she arrived at the family detention center in Dilley.

"They took away her prenatal vitamins," he said. "They took away her access to a phone for three or four days. It was like a punishment."

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The Dilley facility is one of three family detention centers in the United States. It houses women and children.

Of the three facilities, Dilley had the largest number of detainees in late June. The Corpus Christi Caller Times, a Gannett sister paper, reported that as of June 20 there were 1,978 people housed in Dilley, 589 at the Karnes County Residential Center in Texas and 56 at the Berks Family Residential Center in Pennsylvania. 

Santos said he worries because he doesn't know how long they will be at the family detention center.

"She's pregnant and the girls are traumatized. They don't deserve this," he said.

A 1997 settlement prohibits the detainment of immigrant children for more than 20 days. The Department of Justice tried to get the settlement revised, but a federal judge in Los Angeles rejected those efforts earlier this month. 

The Obama administration tried to get the settlement revised three years earlier but also failed.

Sen. Thomas Tillis, a North Carolina Republican, tried to push a bill that would allow families to be detained together while their cases are heard in court, but it was blocked on the Senate floor Wednesday, according to a report from The Hill.

In the meantime, Santos said he is trying to find out how soon he can be reunited with his wife and youngest daughters.

"My oldest daughter asks me, 'has my mother called? What about my sisters?'" Santos said. "I had to tell her they were taken to a family detention center. She got sad because she was hopeful she would see her mother this weekend."

The Associated Press contributed to the reporting of this story.

Steph Solis: @stephmsolis; 732-403-0074; ssolis@gannett.com.