Asylum seeker reunited with young son

SEATAC, Wash. — An asylum seeker was reunited with her young son at Seattle Tacoma International Airport nearly two months after they were separated after illegally entering the southern U.S. border.

Yolany Padilla is the first asylum-seeking parent in Washington state who has been reunited with her child. Several other parents remain detained in Tacoma and Sea-Tac without their children.

It was a reunion that needed no translation.

The asylum seeker a from Honduras held her 6-year-old son in her arms after 52 days apart, and Padilla and her son, Jelsin, were still smiling when they emerged, together, at Sea-Tac airport.

"It's been so so long since I've seen him," she told reporters in Spanish, holding tightly to her son. "I imagined how I'd feel inside."

Her translator was Jorge Baron. He runs the Northwest Immigrant Rights Project, which worked for weeks to make the reunion possible.

"I hope that all these bad things that have happened turn into good things in the future," Padilla said through Baron.

Padilla is one of three asylum seekers suing the federal government on behalf of all parents sent to the Northwest without the children with whom they crossed illegally into the U.S.

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Ibis Guzman fled Honduras with her five-year-old son. She is in Tacoma. He is in Texas.

Bianca Orantes fled El Salvador with her eight-year-old son. She, too, is in Tacoma, and her son was sent to New York state. Only Padilla is back with her so,n who was being held in New York as well.

Still, Baron says they plan to continue their legal fight.

"And we're not only challenging the fact that the parents are separated from their children," said Baron, "but the fact that they have to wait so long to even get started with their asylum process."

He says that was the case for Padilla, who was freed from detention just a week ago. Now she is offering this encouragement to parents still waiting for reunification.

"They should have faith in God who will get us through these moments, such sad moments," said Padilla.

Baron got a double dose of good news Saturday.

As KIRO 7 was talking to Baron, he got a text that another parent who, was sent from Washington to Las Vegas, got her son back Saturday, too.

But he said the work to reunite hundreds more asylum seeking parents and their children continues.

Cox Media Group