The Littlest Deportees

SAN FRANCISCO--The plight of seven-year-old refugee Elián González riveted the nation when he was forcibly returned to Cuba in 2000. Today, thousands of children, some as young as five, travel north every day desperate to reconnect with their families, some of whom are in the U.S. legally. Many of these child refugees wind up being detained, deported, or temporarily reunited with family while under the threat of deportation. There is no home for them either here or back in their own countries.Dilcia

Dilcia Rodriguez is one such case.

Two years ago, the seven-year-old Dilcia made the 3,000-mile trek from southwestern Honduras, across El Salvador, Guatemala and Mexico, with a nine-year-old cousin and a 16-year-old uncle. Border Patrol agents apprehended them after they crossed the Rio Grande into Brownsville, Texas. When the agents learned that the children had family in San Francisco, they were transferred to California and reunited with relatives. Dilcia

Their reunion, however, was overshadowed by formal deportation orders against the three migrants. Dilcia’s 16-year-old uncle eventually returned to Honduras. Her cousin was reunited with his mother who, like Dilcia’s parents, is fighting to keep him with her in the U.S.

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