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The Trump administration sent the mother of a 2-year-old to Venezuela and the father to a Salvadoran prison. Their daughter remains somewhere in the United States.
April 29, 2025, 12:10 p.m. ET
A Venezuelan family is calling for a 2-year-old to be returned to her mother after the U.S. authorities deported the mother to Venezuela on Friday without the child.
The girl’s father was sent to a prison in El Salvador in March.
The toddler, Maikelys Antonella Espinoza Bernal, remains in foster care in the United States, according to the Department of Homeland Security. Officials said in a statement that the child was removed from her parents and from the manifest of her mother’s deportation plane for her own “safety and welfare.”
The Trump administration claims the girl’s parents are members of Tren de Aragua, a Venezuelan gang, but it has not offered evidence to back this up.
The girl, known to many in her family as Antonella, is one of several children who have been swept up in President Trump’s immigration crackdown in recent days. At least three children who are U.S. citizens were sent to Honduras this month with their mothers, decisions protested by the families’ lawyers.
In the case of the Venezuelan toddler, the girl’s mother, Yorely Bernal, 20, had entered the United States with her partner, Maiker Espinoza, and their child in May 2024, while President Joseph R. Biden Jr. was still in office.
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English (US) ·