Immigrant children reunited with parents
SAN DIEGO — Lugging little backpacks, smiling immigrant children were scooped up into their parents’ arms Tuesday as the Trump administration scrambled to meet a court-ordered deadline to reunite dozens of youngsters forcibly separated from their families at the border.
In Grand Rapids, Mich., two girls and a boy who had been in temporary foster care were reunited with their Honduran fathers at a U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement center about three months after they were split up.
The three fathers were “just holding them and hugging them and telling them that everything was fine and that they were never going to be separated again,” said immigration lawyer Abril Valdes.
One of the fathers, Ever Reyes Mejia, walked out of the ICE center carrying his beaming son and the boy’s Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles backpack. The boy was secured in a booster seat, and father and son were driven away.
The Justice Department said more than 50 children under age 5 could be back in the arms of their parents by the deadline at the end of the day.
“Everyone is safe”: Daring rescue of Thai soccer team ends
MAE SAI, Thailand — “Everyone is safe.” With those three words posted on Facebook the daring rescue mission to extricate 12 boys and their soccer coach from the treacherous confines of a flooded cave in Thailand came to a close on Tuesday — a grueling 18-day ordeal that claimed the life of an experienced diver and riveted people worldwide.
Thailand’s Navy SEALs, who were central to the rescue effort, celebrated the feat with a post that read: “All the thirteen Wild Boars are now out of the cave,” — a reference to the boys’ soccer team. “We are not sure if this is a miracle, a science, or what.”
Eight of the boys were rescued by a team of Thai and international divers on Sunday and Monday. On Tuesday, the final four boys were brought out, along with their coach. Their rescue was followed a few hours later by the safe return of a medic and three SEAL divers who had stayed for days with the boys in their cramped refuge in the cave.
Cheers erupted from the dozens of volunteers and journalists awaiting news of whether the intricate and high-risk rescue mission had succeeded. Helicopters transporting the boys roared overhead. People on the street cheered and clapped when ambulances ferrying them on the last leg of their journey from the cave arrived at a hospital in Chiang Rai city.
Their joy and relief was echoed around the globe by the multitude of people who had watched the long ordeal in widely broadcast newscasts.
By wire sources