Cambridge, MA immigration lawyer Jeff Goldman talks about a powerful case in which his firm was able to reunite a mother and her child who were separated upon arriving in the United States. He shares that in the spring of 2018, his law firm received a frantic phone call from a Portuguese-speaking woman who was hysterically crying. She explained that she had crossed into the United States from Mexico and that her child had been taken from her arms and placed in a cage-like structure. She could see the child but was not allowed to speak to or touch him. When she woke the next morning, her son and all the other children were gone, and no one could tell her where he was.

She described being desperate to find her son, and that she had been flown to Massachusetts against her will. She had insisted to authorities in Texas that she would not leave until she knew her child’s location, but they claimed they did not know. Once in Massachusetts, she immediately called his law firm—apparently having been given the firm’s name by a friend before even arriving in the United States.

He and his team were shocked and deeply concerned. They had been following news about the government’s separation of parents and children and were unsure how they could help. They quickly mobilized, assigning two lawyers and a paralegal who spoke Portuguese full-time to assist her. Within a week, they had located the child and contacted government authorities. When the authorities refused to release the child, they flew one lawyer and a paralegal to Chicago, where the child was being held.

They filed a lawsuit in federal court, and in less than 24 hours, a federal judge reunited the parent and child, forcing the government to comply. The case was both thrilling and profoundly gratifying. In the months that followed, his firm was inundated with calls not only from the media but also from other parents separated from their children. Over the next five months, they successfully reunited 11 more parents with their children. He recalls this as one of the most exciting, meaningful, and rewarding moments of his career.