1. United States
2. Fla.
3. Letter

You are cruel and evil BREAKING🚨 ICE gave a mom two options as six officers surrounded her: be detained indefinitely at an unknown location, or thrown on a plane to Honduras in 72 hours. She took her 10-year-old U.S. citizen daughter — a girl who has never set foot in Honduras — and was forced to split her family apart. Margarita Melgar fled Honduras in 2014 after a family member stalked and threatened her. She crossed the border to seek asylum with her two oldest girls, then 7 and 3. For 12 years she went to every ICE check-in. She paid rent. She paid taxes. She worked two jobs, one decorating cakes and pastries at a bakery in Harvard Square that she said she loved. Her case wasn't even over. A motion to reopen it — based on caring for her disabled U.S. citizen daughter — is still pending before the Board of Immigration Appeals. People with open cases usually get to stay. A judge denied her stay of removal with one sentence and no reasoning. Her attorney says she's never seen a judge offer none. So Margarita had 48 hours to split her own family apart. Her 17-year-old, Tania, would stay with a relative. Her 20-year-old, Damary, a college student, would stay in Boston and try to hold the rest together. Katherin, 10, the American child, would go. Katherin hadn't eaten since lunch the day before. At Logan, there were no restaurants before security, so the three sat on a bench for an hour. Katherin pulled out her World Cup sticker book and her sister helped her sort the players. Every few minutes they stopped to hug. Then Margarita stood up and said it was time. Damary stumbled through the terminal afterward, crying silently. She's now 20 and responsible for what's left of her family in two countries. The government's line: "ICE does not separate families." Katherin packed her teddy bear's clothes into a magenta suitcase the night before they took her to a country the State Department warns is dangerous for women and girls.