Heidy Sánchez was so distracted that she got on the rooftop of a house in Havana to get Wi-Fi connection and send her daughter a bedtime lullaby via WhatsApp.
The Tampa-area mother was deported to Cuba last week without her 17-month-old U.S.-citizen daughter, who has a history of seizures and was still being breastfed, she and her lawyers told NBC News.
“My daughter tells me over the phone, ‘Come, mama.’ And when she cries, she just keeps saying, ‘Mama, mama, mama.’ It’s overwhelming… I can’t even sleep at night,” Sánchez said by phone from Havana.
Sánchez’s case illustrates the stepped-up pace of deportations of immigrants who don’t have criminal charges or convictions, even though President Donald Trump said during his election campaign the focus would be on deporting violent criminals.
Sánchez’s deportation occurred around the time two other mothers were deported to Honduras with their U.S. citizen children, including one with stage 4 cancer. In those two cases, attorneys have said the mothers wanted their children to stay in the U.S. but they were not allowed to make the arrangements.
In the case of Sánchez, she said everything happened very fast. “They never gave me the option to take my daughter,” Sánchez said. Her attorneys said the same.
ICE did not respond to a request for comment on the case, but the administration has said in previous comments that deported parents have been given the choice to take their children or not.
Sánchez said her daughter started having seizures three months ago and is seeing a neurologist in the Tampa area. Her daughter’s bedtime routine consisted of breastfeeding, lullabies and then sleeping together in bed.
Now her daughter just cries, Sánchez and her husband, Carlos Valle, said in separate interviews. Valle, who’s a naturalized U.S. citizen, remains in Tampa with their child.
Sánchez was scheduled to check in at the Immigration and Customs Enforcement office in Tampa on April 30, but her appointment was bumped up, her Miami-based attorney, Claudia Cañizares, said.
Sánchez went to the appointment with her daughter and Cañizares’ associate in Tampa, while Valle, Sanchez’s husband, waited outside because he was not allowed in the room.
At the appointment Sánchez was informed she was being detained and she needed to arrange for someone to pick up her child. According to Sánchez and the attorneys, Sánchez started crying, saying she couldn’t leave her baby. The officers told her the child could visit her in Cuba.
