Thousands of Mexican children cross into the United States without their parents, and many are never reunited with their families, Mexico’s first lady, Margarita Zavala, said Wednesday.
“The problem is largely ignored by the media and the powerful,” she said at a Denver fundraiser for Project C.U.R.E., which sends medical supplies to Mexico and other developing nations.
Zavala, wife of Mexican President Felipe Calderon, told about 1,800 people at a luncheon that she wants to raise awareness about the problem.
“I am not here to talk about immigration policy. . . . This is about children,” she said.
The U.S. deports about 50,000 children to Mexico yearly, and about 22,000 of them are unaccompanied by parents.
“Behind those numbers are families and individuals that have a face and a name,” she said.
Often children cross the border on their own, but some start the journey with parents and are separated. She told the story of a 7-year-old girl who left Oaxaca with her mother, looking for her father. The smugglers who took them to Arizona separated the children from the adults, abandoning the kids in a church when they reached their destination. It took four months for the mother to find her child.
Many children aren’t so lucky, Zavala said. “Many migrant children never find their parents.”
Project C.U.R.E. invited Zavala to Denver for the event, which will benefit flood-ravaged Chiapas and Tabasco states, and other areas of Mexico.
Tom McGhee: 303-954-1671 or tmcghee@denverpost.com
