Florida Vigil Demands Reunification for Deported Mom and Infant Daughter
Tampa residents will hold a vigil tonight for Heidy Sánchez Tejeda, whose deportation to Cuba separated her from her 1-year-old daughter
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They’re a little more than 300 miles away from each other this Mother’s Day, but they’re an ocean apart.
Heidy Sánchez Tejeda had been living with her husband and one-year-old daughter in Tampa, Florida, working as a home health assistant who cares for the elderly, when she got swept up in the Trump administration’s Operation Tidal Wave.
On the eve of Mother’s Day, the Tampa Bay Immigrant Solidarity Network won’t let the public forget that. They will be holding a vigil tonight at 6:30 p.m. Eastern Time.
Public reaction:
A MoveOn.org petition to reunite Ms. Sánchez with her husband and their baby collected more than 4,500 signatures.
“No one should have to spend Mother's Day without their children and their families,” Karla Correa told All Rise News in a phone interview. “So we're going to be drawing attention not only to Heidy, but also to all the mothers who were swept up in Operation Tidal Wave.”
During his first term, Donald Trump tried to distance himself from family separation, amid public outcry about the cruelty of the wildly unpopular policy.
“The Trump administration has been saying that they're not going to do a family separations, and people are going to have the option if they're deported to bring their children with them,” Correa noted.
Correa says the case of Sánchez (among others) shows that wasn’t true.
Belly of the Beast, a U.S.-based media outlet that covers Cuba, brought Sánchez’s story to popular attention by interviewing her in Havana, where she’s currently residing.
Sánchez immigrated to the United States in 2019.
“She has a driver’s license,” Correa told us. “She pays taxes. She and her husband and their one year-old daughter have been living here for several years now.”
After a routine immigration check-in last month, Sánchez was deported and separated from her husband Carlos Yuniel Valle and their infant daughter. Sánchez is one of the more than 1,100 people arrested during Operation Tidal Wave, a cooperation between state and federal authorities in what’s being called the largest single week sweep of immigrants in Florida.
Her case caught the attention of the local community and elected officials like Democratic Rep. Kathy Castor, a Florida congresswoman who sent Trump a letter last month urging him to reunite Sánchez with her family.
“It is unconscionable and wrong for your ICE personnel to harm families in this way. Ms. Sánchez is entitled to due process, and her husband and daughter (both U.S. citizens) deserve to be treated with the dignity we value as Americans,” Castor wrote in the April letter. "Ms. Sánchez’s husband, Carlos Yuniel Valle, advised me that the separation of mother and daughter was so sudden and traumatic that their infant daughter was taken to the hospital. The baby was still breastfeeding at the time your Administration tore them apart, and the baby’s ongoing health issues require her mother’s return to the U.S. as soon as possible.”
The vigil will take place in Centennial Park in the Ybor City neighborhood of Tampa, Fla. on Saturday at 6:30 p.m. through 8 p.m. ET.
The group’s call to action is below.
