Moving video shows a mother's reunion with her son after they were separated at the border

"It's not fair for a mother."
 By 
Nicole Gallucci
 on 

A mother and son, who were separated from each other more than a month ago at the border, recently reunited at Baltimore Washington International Airport.

On Friday, CNN reported that 38-year-old Beata Mariana de Jesus Mejia-Mejia finally got to see her 7-year-old son, Darwin, for the first time since he was taken from her at an immigration holding facility in Arizona in May.

The reunion comes after the mother sued several government agencies and members of the Trump administration to have her son released from custody. An agreement was reached in federal court on Thursday.

Footage of the emotional reunion, shared by ABC News on Facebook, shows the two family members embracing and crying after meeting up in the airport terminal. "I love you," the woman can be heard saying several times in Spanish.

According to CNN, Mejia had been kept in the dark about her son's whereabouts for weeks, forcing her to take legal action. "It's not fair for a mother," she told the publication. "It's like they're putting a knife in your chest and killing you."

Since early May, more than 2,000 migrant children like Darwin have been separated from their families at the border between the United States and Mexico.

After a great deal of backlash to the administration's strict "zero-tolerance" policy, President Trump recently signed an executive order that will supposedly keep families together at the border. However, like Mejia, many detained parents still have not been given any information on the whereabouts of their children, causing fear that many families who've already been separated may never be reunited.

Despite the executive order, The New York Times also reports that parents and children will now be "indefinitely" detained together at the border, meaning if they're held by the government for longer than legally allowed, there's still a chance they could wind up being separated.

For even more information on how to help families at the border, check out our guide.

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Nicole Gallucci

Nicole is a Senior Editor at Mashable. She primarily covers entertainment and digital culture trends, and in her free time she can be found watching TV, sending voice notes, or going viral on Twitter for admiring knitwear. You can follow her on Twitter @nicolemichele5.

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