Himself in a foreign country at 4-month-old: a story of a child shared with his parents at the border

Text messages also came in day and night; they indicated only the sex and age of the child who was detained at the border and separated from the parents of the child. In search of a shelter for each of them, an employee of Bethany Christian Services in Michigan had no more than 15 minutes. One winter day in February 2018, Alma Acevedo received a message that took her breath away: “4 of the month. Boy".

Фото: Depositphotos

Since the summer of 2017, the 24-year-old social worker has seen a growing wave of children arriving from the border, most of them from Central America. Those who were old enough to talk, said that they were separated from their parents, and cried, writes The New York Times.

But none of the previously illegitimate children of illegal immigrants was so small. The baby was brought by two agents, he had long eyelashes and deep brown eyes. He looked healthy and plump, which indicated that he was cared for.

Acevedo looked at the documents accompanying the child. The birth certificate issued in Romania stated that his name was Constantin Mutu and his parents were Vasile and Florentina. A search of the Immigration and Customs Enforcement Agency database revealed that the boy's father was in federal custody in Pearsall, Texas.

Constantine was the smallest of thousands of children seized from their parents in accordance with the policy of separating families of illegal immigrants at the US border. The government has not yet informed Mutu why his son was taken from him, and officials of the Department of Internal Security refused to comment on this story.

Months pass before Constantine's parents see him again. Prior to that, his father was sent for a psychiatric examination to a Texas immigration center, because he could not stop crying; and the baby’s mother was hospitalized with hypertension because of the stress experienced. During this time Konstantin became attached to an American family, since he spent most of his life in their three-story house in the countryside of Michigan, and then he was sent home.

Now that he is more than a year and a half old, the child still cannot walk on his own and does not say a word.

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While the vast majority of families crossing the U.S. border in recent months are from Central America, Mutu's family came from much further afield - Romania. They are members of the Roma community, an ethnic minority originating from India In Romania, the Roma have been enslaved for more than 500 years. Violent attacks on them continue throughout Europe. Exclusion from schools, workplaces and social services is common, human rights organizations have also documented the practice of their forced sterilization.

The Mutu family, who worked on a wide variety of tasks, asked for alms and survived, as she could, heard that members of their community achieved financial success after moving to the United States.

The four previous children of the couple were born at home, but for the birth of Constantin Florentine a cesarean section was required. Vasile sold two pigs and a cow to pay the doctor who will do the procedure. In the mist of pain during labor, Florentina signed a document that she could not read. When she returned to the hospital for an appointment to check her condition, a hospital employee told her that the doctor had also performed a tubal ligation. She and her husband planned to have more children, as is customary in their culture. They were devastated by what happened.

In the end, Vasile and Florentina decided to seek asylum in the United States.

Фото: Depositphotos

Within a few weeks, the couple sold the house to pay the person who organizes their delivery to America through Mexico. Florentina packed a suitcase with diapers, a change of clothes for each of them, and the family went on a trip. On the plane, Constantine had a fever.

In Mexico City, they met a smuggler who led them to a crowded bus heading for the border.

On the bus, the adults sat out of sight of each other. The mother is with 4-year-old Nicholas, and the father is with Konstantin. But after one of the stops, Vasile noticed that the seats of his wife and son were empty. He couldn't call her - there was no money on the phone. Not knowing what else to do, he paid a taxi driver to take him and Constantine to a pedestrian bridge into the United States, thinking he could call his wife when they reached the other side of the border. It was already dark outside when he reached the US immigration officer. He told the officer he wanted political asylum and was invited to a telephone interview, which was conducted with the help of an interpreter. Mutu explained that he had lost his wife and son, and that they were fleeing persecution in Romania.

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Some time after the interview several officers entered the room where Mutu was. They took Constantine, and tied Mutu’s arms and legs, after which he was pulled out of the room, and Constantine stayed with the officers.

“I started crying because I didn't know what to do. I couldn't speak English. I told them, “I don't understand. For what?" - said Mutu.

Florentine Mutu was still at the bus stop with Nicholas, crying on a bench after she discovered that the bus had left without her. Suddenly her mother called her. US border officials called her in Romania and threatened that her daughter would also be arrested if she crossed the border. Relatives quickly raised money to pay Florentine and Nicholas travel home.

Constantine was placed in a foster family in Michigan, and Acevedo worked on contacting his parents. She found his mother's phone number in Romania and called him. With the help of a Google translator, she managed to tell a woman about Constantine. Florentine Mutu began to sob. She again and again repeated her full maiden name, which was indicated in the birth certificate of Constantine, to prove that this is indeed her child.

Acevedo began organizing weekly video calls between Constantine and his mother, Florentine mostly crying, talking Romanian to him.

Vasile Mutu, still imprisoned, sank deeper into depression. He could not sleep and refused most of the food he was offered. Occasionally he was handed documents in English or Spanish, which he could not read. He cried so hard that his cellmates began beating him to silence him. He thought about suicide: “Nobody told me anything. They kept telling me to wait and wait. ”

Two months after the arrest, an immigration officer came to Mutu with a proposal. As he understood it, he was told that if he refused his application for asylum, he would be deported back to Romania along with Constantine. He agreed, and 3 June 2018, he was released from his cell and loaded into a van.

He searched everywhere for Constantine and asked the officers about him, but he was not given a clear answer. At the airport, he refused to board the plane without a child. Immigration officers, he said, told him that Konstantin would be handed over to him as soon as he took his place. But the plane took off, and the child did not appear.

When Mutu returned home, it was more like a funeral than a holiday.

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At this time, Constantine lived with a foster family in Michigan. The family asked not to give their names because it would violate the terms of their contract with the federal government. Their three daughters immediately fell in love with Constantine and began to argue about who can pull him out of the crib when he wakes up.

The adoptive mother of the child carefully documented all the events of his life for biological parents.

Constantine was still in the diaper when he appeared at the Federal Immigration Court in Detroit four months after his arrival in Michigan on June 14 of the year 2018. During the five-minute trial, he babbled on the lap of a foster mother, who was sitting on the dock. His lawyer demanded that he be returned to Romania at the expense of the government and as soon as possible.

A lawyer from the Department of Homeland Security objected to this request, stating that Konstantin, as a “foreigner who had arrived in the country,” was not entitled to such assistance. The judge quickly decided to pay the deportation by the government, questioning the idea that “the defendant should be responsible for independently returning to Romania at the age of 8 months”. The judge gave the government three months to either appeal or send the child home.

By the time Constantine was sent home in July 2018, he was 9 months, and he spent most of his life in custody of the United States government.

Florentin and Vasile Mutu did not sleep all night before reuniting with the child. They stood at the baggage claim at the airport in Bucharest, when they finally saw Constantine, who was brought to Romania by her adoptive mother. She handed over the child to his own mother, but he screamed and reached back to her, and fear showed on his face.

Parents had to stop several times on the way home to console Constantine, who simply fought hysterically because he was separated from the woman to whom he was accustomed. A few weeks later, his mother struggled to get him to eat or sleep and exchanged text messages with his adoptive mother, who gave advice on how he liked being hugged and fed. In the suitcase that her adoptive mother had packed, she put 200 dollars in cash along with clothes, dummies, toys and books that Constantine liked, and his favorite blue-green striped blanket.

Florentine Mutu struggled with conflicting feelings of gratitude and guilt.

“He was spoiled,” she said. “He lived there comfortably, in a decent house. Not the way we live here.”

The Mutu family filed a claim for damages against the United States. Now they are temporarily living in the house of friends, where no one has enough space and clothes have to be kept in the attic.

Konstantin acclimatized a little. He is sensitive to loud noises, and a large crowd makes him cry, which is a problem, says his mother, because a noisy crowd is part of the Roma culture.

In the 18 months he still cannot walk unless he is holding onto someone's hand. He chats and squeals, but does not say a single word.

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