MoFo Lawyers Help Reunite a Honduran Mother and Her Daughters After Nearly Four Months’ Separation

A team from Morrison & Foerster (Doug Hendricks, Claudia Vetesi, and Melissa Victoria Perez) together with lawyers outside the firm (including Layne Hilton of Kanner & Whiteley, Taylor Levy of Annunciation House, Héctor Ruiz of the Santa Fe Dreamers Project, and solo practitioners Amy Maldonado and Eduardo Beckett) helped their pro bono client, a Honduran woman named Yeimi, win release from an El Paso detention center and reunification with her two young daughters, ages 3 and 5, after nearly four months of separation.

Yeimi was separated from her daughters, who are both U.S. citizens, for 120 days after being apprehended by ICE Border Patrol agents when they crossed the border near El Paso, Texas in mid-October 2018. Yeimi and her daughters fled their home country of Honduras, seeking protection in the United States from severe domestic violence, death threats, and additional persecution.

The emotional reunion took place on the evening of February 8, 2019.