More than 40,000 social media users shared a tweet claiming that nine parents deported by the Trump administration were reunited with their children in the United States on February 3, including David Xol and his 9-year-old son Byron . Although President Joe Biden created a task force on February 3 to reunite migrant families, separated by former President Donald Trump’s “zero tolerance” strategy, the nine families, including the family featured in the social media post, are in January 2020 reunited, not in February 2021.
‘Nine parents deported by the Trump administration ended up in the US again on Wednesday to reunite with children they had not seen in a year and a half. “Some of the children were at the airport to greet them, including David Xol’s 9-year-old son Byron,” said the tweet posted on February 3, 2021 (here), which includes a photo of a man embracing a child. Screenshots of the tweet were shared on social media (here, here, here).
The author of the tweet later gave an explanation that he has discovered since the posting of the tweet that David and Byron were reunited in January 2020, not on February 3, 2021 (here).
In May 2018, Trump implemented a ‘zero tolerance’ policy to illegally cross families trapped across the border and remove their children. Amid international outcry, Trump ended the policy just months after it was announced (here, here, here), but as of October 2020, parents of 545 divorced children were still not tracked down (here).
On February 3, 2021, the date on which the tweet was posted, President Biden created a task force to reunite migrant families separated by Trump’s 2018 zero tolerance strategy at the border between America and Mexico. Biden also ordered that the processing of asylum at the border between America and Mexico and the immigration system (here) be reviewed.
The father and son pictured in the tweet were reunited on January 22, 2020: the photo of them embracing was taken by an AP photographer, as seen here. The caption reads: “Guatemala’s David Xol-Cholom embraces his son Byron at Los Angeles International Airport as they reunite after being divorced during the Trump administration’s large-scale separation of immigrant families, in Los Angeles.”
Other AP photos and a video of the reunion can be seen here, here and here. An AP article from the time, which is visible here, explains that Xol-Cholom was one of nine parents who were allowed to return to the United States after being deported to Guatemala in May 2018. He was reunited with his 9-year-old son, who was placed in a series of government facilities before ending up with a host family in Texas, after a federal judge ruled that the US government had illegally prevented them from seeking asylum.
VERDICT
Untrue. The nine parents, including David Xol-Cholom, were reunited with their children on January 22, 2020 and not on February 3, 2021.
This article was produced by the Reuters Fact Check team. Read more about our fact-checking work here.