"Her daughter to be sent to live w-American family if she didn't agree for them both to be deported"

HOUSTON—Maria and her 12-year-old daughter surrendered to Customs and Border Protection agents immediately after crossing the Rio Grande on a raft near McAllen, Texas, in the first week of June. It was the final step of their journey from Guatemala, where both of them had been subjected to years of physical abuse by Maria’s husband. They wanted asylum in the United States.

Because Maria had committed a misdemeanor offense by crossing the border, she and her daughter were sent to a processing center where a CBP officer allegedly gave Maria a stark choice. (Maria is a pseudonym to protect her identity.) If she gave up her asylum claim and returned to Guatemala, she and her daughter would remain together. If she applied for asylum, on the other hand, Maria would be thrown in jail for a year and her daughter would be put up for adoption. Maria would never see her daughter again.

“We’ve heard of the history of CBP officers using lies and misinformation to pressure people into signing voluntary departures. But in this specific context, where they’re threatening to take a child away and adopting them out to an American family, that was something I had not heard before.”
— Edgar Saldivar, ACLU of Texas