Latest news with #YorelyBernal
Yahoo
17-05-2025
- Politics
- Yahoo
Deported mom says toddler's return to Venezuela after separation by US authorities was a ‘miracle'
A Venezuelan mother who was initially deported from the US without her 2-year-old daughter says being reunited with her child this week felt like a 'miracle.' 'Many times, I doubted that my daughter was going to come,' said a tearful Yorely Bernal in an interview with Venezuelan news outlet La Iguana TV on Thursday. 'But that miracle they gave me yesterday was something that there are no words to explain.' Bernal was deported from the United States in March without her daughter Maikelys, who remained in foster care in the US. When Venezuelan First Lady Cilia Flores personally handed Maikelys Espinoza to Bernal at the presidential palace in Caracas on Wednesday, it put an end to nearly a year of separation between the two. According to the US Department of Homeland Security (DHS), Maikelys spent most of her time in the US in foster care under the custody of the US Office of Refugee Resettlement before being returned to her mother under court order. DHS claims that the separation was for the child's safety, alleging that Bernal and her partner, whom the US deported to the high-security CECOT prison in El Salvador earlier this year, are members of the Venezuelan criminal gang Tren de Aragua – something both parents deny. 'The child's mother, Yorely Escarleth Bernal Inciarte, oversees recruitment of young women for drug smuggling and prostitution for Tren de Aragua,' DHS alleged in a statement on May 14. The US government has not provided specific evidence for this allegation, and both Bernal and Espinoza say they have no affiliation with Tren de Aragua. Bernal told La Iguana that US authorities cited Bernal's upcoming immigration hearings at the time when they took first her daughter into custody last year. Bernal entered the United States with Maikelys and her partner Maiker Espinoza on May 14, 2024. All three were swiftly detained by US immigration authorities, Bernal told La Iguana, and Maikelys was removed from their care five days later. Months would pass before Mikaelys – who was just over a year old when they crossed the border – was able to see her mother again through a video calling app under immigration authorities' supervision, according to Bernal. At that point, the toddler no longer recognized her, she says. 'They allowed me a video call once a week for thirty minutes,' Bernal told La Iguana. 'That's when I was able to see her. I knew it was her. But she didn't recognize me anymore. It had been about five months until I was able to see her again.' Eventually, Bernal and Espinoza were able to see their daughter in 30-minute in-person visits, she says. In a February affidavit filed in federal court, Espinoza said that this was around October 2024. Now reunited with her child in Venezuela, Bernal told Venezuelan media that she's still hopeful that her partner would eventually be set free from CECOT and join his family in Venezuela. 'I know that he is going to be here, because he promised me,' she said.
CNN
17-05-2025
- Politics
- CNN
Deported mom says toddler's return to Venezuela after separation by US authorities was a ‘miracle'
A Venezuelan mother who was initially deported from the US without her 2-year-old daughter says being reunited with her child this week felt like a 'miracle.' 'Many times, I doubted that my daughter was going to come,' said a tearful Yorely Bernal in an interview with Venezuelan news outlet La Iguana TV on Thursday. 'But that miracle they gave me yesterday was something that there are no words to explain.' Bernal was deported from the United States in March without her daughter Maikelys, who remained in foster care in the US. When Venezuelan First Lady Cilia Flores personally handed Maikelys Espinoza to Bernal at the presidential palace in Caracas on Wednesday, it put an end to nearly a year of separation between the two. According to the US Department of Homeland Security (DHS), Maikelys spent most of her time in the US in foster care under the custody of the US Office of Refugee Resettlement before being returned to her mother under court order. DHS claims that the separation was for the child's safety, alleging that Bernal and her partner, whom the US deported to the high-security CECOT prison in El Salvador earlier this year, are members of the Venezuelan criminal gang Tren de Aragua – something both parents deny. 'The child's mother, Yorely Escarleth Bernal Inciarte, oversees recruitment of young women for drug smuggling and prostitution for Tren de Aragua,' DHS alleged in a statement on May 14. The US government has not provided specific evidence for this allegation, and both Bernal and Espinoza say they have no affiliation with Tren de Aragua. Bernal told La Iguana that US authorities cited Bernal's upcoming immigration hearings at the time when they took first her daughter into custody last year. Bernal entered the United States with Maikelys and her partner Maiker Espinoza on May 14, 2024. All three were swiftly detained by US immigration authorities, Bernal told La Iguana, and Maikelys was removed from their care five days later. Months would pass before Mikaelys – who was just over a year old when they crossed the border – was able to see her mother again through a video calling app under immigration authorities' supervision, according to Bernal. At that point, the toddler no longer recognized her, she says. 'They allowed me a video call once a week for thirty minutes,' Bernal told La Iguana. 'That's when I was able to see her. I knew it was her. But she didn't recognize me anymore. It had been about five months until I was able to see her again.' Eventually, Bernal and Espinoza were able to see their daughter in 30-minute in-person visits, she says. In a February affidavit filed in federal court, Espinoza said that this was around October 2024. Now reunited with her child in Venezuela, Bernal told Venezuelan media that she's still hopeful that her partner would eventually be set free from CECOT and join his family in Venezuela. 'I know that he is going to be here, because he promised me,' she said.
CNN
17-05-2025
- Politics
- CNN
Deported mom says toddler's return to Venezuela after separation by US authorities was a ‘miracle'
A Venezuelan mother who was initially deported from the US without her 2-year-old daughter says being reunited with her child this week felt like a 'miracle.' 'Many times, I doubted that my daughter was going to come,' said a tearful Yorely Bernal in an interview with Venezuelan news outlet La Iguana TV on Thursday. 'But that miracle they gave me yesterday was something that there are no words to explain.' Bernal was deported from the United States in March without her daughter Maikelys, who remained in foster care in the US. When Venezuelan First Lady Cilia Flores personally handed Maikelys Espinoza to Bernal at the presidential palace in Caracas on Wednesday, it put an end to nearly a year of separation between the two. According to the US Department of Homeland Security (DHS), Maikelys spent most of her time in the US in foster care under the custody of the US Office of Refugee Resettlement before being returned to her mother under court order. DHS claims that the separation was for the child's safety, alleging that Bernal and her partner, whom the US deported to the high-security CECOT prison in El Salvador earlier this year, are members of the Venezuelan criminal gang Tren de Aragua – something both parents deny. 'The child's mother, Yorely Escarleth Bernal Inciarte, oversees recruitment of young women for drug smuggling and prostitution for Tren de Aragua,' DHS alleged in a statement on May 14. The US government has not provided specific evidence for this allegation, and both Bernal and Espinoza say they have no affiliation with Tren de Aragua. Bernal told La Iguana that US authorities cited Bernal's upcoming immigration hearings at the time when they took first her daughter into custody last year. Bernal entered the United States with Maikelys and her partner Maiker Espinoza on May 14, 2024. All three were swiftly detained by US immigration authorities, Bernal told La Iguana, and Maikelys was removed from their care five days later. Months would pass before Mikaelys – who was just over a year old when they crossed the border – was able to see her mother again through a video calling app under immigration authorities' supervision, according to Bernal. At that point, the toddler no longer recognized her, she says. 'They allowed me a video call once a week for thirty minutes,' Bernal told La Iguana. 'That's when I was able to see her. I knew it was her. But she didn't recognize me anymore. It had been about five months until I was able to see her again.' Eventually, Bernal and Espinoza were able to see their daughter in 30-minute in-person visits, she says. In a February affidavit filed in federal court, Espinoza said that this was around October 2024. Now reunited with her child in Venezuela, Bernal told Venezuelan media that she's still hopeful that her partner would eventually be set free from CECOT and join his family in Venezuela. 'I know that he is going to be here, because he promised me,' she said.
Al Jazeera
14-05-2025
- Politics
- Al Jazeera
Toddler separated from mother deported from the US returned to Venezuela
A Venezuelan toddler who was separated from her parents after they crossed the United States-Mexico border together has been returned to Venezuela, to where her mother was deported in April. Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro thanked the administration of United States President Donald Trump for the return on Wednesday of two-year-old Maikelys Espinoza Bernal to her mother, Yorely Bernal. 'We must be thankful for all the efforts, for [Trump special envoy] Rich Grenell for his efforts … and thank Donald Trump, too,' Maduro said, calling the child's return 'an act of justice'. Both of the toddler's parents were accused by the Trump administration of involvement with the Tren de Aragua gang, a claim for which the government has offered no evidence and is firmly denied by family members. The child's father, 25-year-old Maiker Espinoza, was among at least 137 Venezuelans sent to a prison in El Salvador in March. Venezuelan officials had sought the return of Maikelys, and footage shown on state television showed First Lady Cilia Flores holding Maikelys after she arrived at an international airport near the capital of Caracas. The child was reunited with her mother and grandmother in an event at the presidential palace attended by Maduro, who has voiced occasional criticism of Trump's deportation push but reached an agreement in March to receive Venezuelans deported from the US. The Trump administration has invoked sometimes vague and unsubstantiated claims of Tren de Aragua membership to send Venezuelan migrants to CECOT, a maximum security prison in El Salvador, notorious for abusive conditions, without due process under the 1798 Alien Enemies Act. The toddler's father, 25-year-old Maiker Espinoza, has been accused by the Trump administration, without evidence, of being a 'lieutenant' in Tren de Aragua who oversees 'homicides, drug sales, kidnappings, extortion, sex trafficking and operates a torture house'. 'At no time has my son been involved with them,' his mother, Maria Escalona, told the news agency Reuters this month, of claims that her son is a member of Tren de Aragua. 'I think this is political – they are using the case of my son to cover up the horror that is being committed against all these innocents.' The Department of Homeland Security (DHS) also accused Yorely Bernal of recruiting young women for narcotics smuggling and sex work, but has not provided any evidence for those claims and deported her to Venezuela in April. The Trump administration has invoked the Alien Enemies Act, a rarely used wartime law that grants the president powers to expeditiously expel people from the country without usual protections, under the pretext that irregular migration to the US constitutes a foreign 'invasion'. A report by the US intelligence community found no evidence for public claims by the Trump administration that Tren de Aragua was coordinating activities with the Maduro government as part of a clandestine attack on the United States. On Wednesday, Director of National Intelligence Tulsi Gabbard fired two top members of the intelligence body that authored that assessment.
The Star
14-05-2025
- Politics
- The Star
Toddler left behind in U.S. after parents deported arrives in Venezuela
CARACAS (Reuters) - A Venezuelan toddler who was separated from her parents when they crossed the U.S.-Mexico border a year ago and who remained in the U.S. when they were deported arrived in the South American country on a removal flight on Wednesday. Major figures in Venezuela's socialist government, which is under extensive U.S. sanctions, had repeatedly called for Maikelys Espinoza Bernal, aged 2, to be returned to her mother, Yorely Bernal, who was deported back to Venezuela in April. Images shown on Venezuelan state television showed the child in the arms of First Lady Cilia Flores at the airport. (Reporting by Vivian Sequera)
