A way back to Adelaida

For four years, Maria Chic Reynoso and her daughter, Adelaida, only spoke through a screen. They were separated at the U.S. border under Trump. Though they’re reunited, they’re still haunted by the past — and the possibility of another separation.

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Maria Chic Reynoso and her daughter, Adelaida, were among the first to be separated at the U.S.-Mexico border in the summer of 2017 under the Trump administration — a year before the White House publicly acknowledged it was separating young children from their parents.

Maria was deported back to rural Guatemala, and Adelaida was sent to live with Maria’s sister in South Florida. Maria and Adelaida spent four agonizing years apart from each other, unsure as to whether or when they would see each other again.

In 2021, Maria and Adelaida were finally reunited. But as Mexico City Bureau Chief Kevin Sieff explains, the trauma of the separation is far from over.

“Almost every family I've talked to has expressed some fundamental kind of fracture in their family that didn't just occur at the moment of separation, but occurred in the period between separation and reunion,” Sieff explains. “And it's just obvious that all of these families are going to have a hard time rebuilding relationships, including this one.”