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STORY: Cuban mother Heidy Sanchez was separated from her still-breastfeeding one-year-old daughter last week - after being deported from the U.S. Speaking from a family member’s home near Havana, she said Florida immigration officials told her that her daughter had to stay but she had to go. They instructed her to call her husband, a naturalized U.S. citizen, to let him know. “Then I started crying, I begged, I pleaded. My daughter got nervous and agitated and began to ask for milk, and I told them 'look, she is asking me to breastfeed her, she still breastfeeds,' but it didn't matter to them.”Hours later, she said, she arrived in Cuba handcuffed and detained, with no passport or U.S. documents explaining why she was deported.:: Heidy Sanchez Tejeda“I want help to reunite with my daughter again, my daughter needs me and I need her very much, it is something that, I don't know, that only a mother can feel. My husband is desperate but my daughter is even more desperate, and I already told him that I am collapsing, I have no life, I don't sleep since I arrived here because my daughter used to sleep in my arms. I don't sleep, I don't rest, I don't eat, I look like a zombie, I have no life, no life.”The U.S. Department of Homeland Security told Reuters that Sanchez' statement was inaccurate and contradicted standard protocol.In an email saying Sanchez stated she “wanted to be removed without the child”.::Heidy Sanchez TejedaReuters asked if Sanchez had been given the choice to take her child to Cuba - but the DHS didn’t immediately respond. :: March 2025 The inconsistencies in Sanchez' case underline concerns among civil rights advocates over U.S. President Donald Trump's immigration crackdown. :: Heidy Sanchez TejedaSanchez said her husband sought legal residence in the U.S. for her two years ago after their marriage - but had yet to receive a response. :: Heidy Sanchez TejedaAnd she now faces the "impossible" decision to either remain apart from her baby daughter or bring her to crisis-racked Cuba.
