Paul, Weiss Helps Reunify Pro Bono Client With 4-Year-Old Daughter After More Than Three Months

A Paul, Weiss client was released from immigration detention and reunited with his four year-old daughter after 93 days of separation. After fleeing violence in Honduras, the father and daughter were detained in Texas after crossing the Mexican border. At an immigration detention facility in Texas, they were woken by immigration officials at 3 a.m. and forcibly separated. The father was sent to a facility in Elizabeth, N.J., and his daughter was sent to a facility in Michigan. They were not able to communicate until two weeks ago, when Paul, Weiss lawyers arranged a call.

U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) officials flew our client to Michigan without informing his Paul, Weiss attorneys or telling our client where he was going, leaving him to assume he was being deported. He was able to communicate that he was at the airport, and after our team confirmed that he was being sent to Michigan, associate Elizabeth Grossman and summer associate Miguel Zamora flew there and worked with the local social services organization and numerous pro bono partners to facilitate the release and reunification of our client and his daughter. Although the government had been ordered to reunite all 102 separated children under five years old by July 10, this represented one of few families actually reunited in compliance with the court’s deadline.

This is just one of several ongoing pro bono efforts the firm has pursued in response to the separation of immigrant parents and their children at the border.

The Paul, Weiss team includes litigation partner Liza Velazquez; pro bono counsel Emily Goldberg and associate BJ Jensen; and litigation associates Adam Bernstein, Elizabeth Grossman, Samantha Weinberg, Bailey Williams and Joshua Handelsman.