In actual evil…

For more than nine months, María, 23, has been waiting in an immigration detention center in Arizona hoping to reunite with the six-year-old niece she raised as a daughter. When the two asked for asylum at the border last March because they feared for their lives in Guatemala, border officials detained María in the Eloy detention center and sent the girl to foster care in New York, 2400 miles away.

The Guardian first reported on the ongoing separation of this family in October. As the story spread, lawmakers and more than 200 clergy asked US Immigration and Customs Enforcement (Ice) to grant María parole so she can leave detention and reunite with the girl. A woman in New York volunteered to house them both while María awaits a decision on her appeal for asylum.

But earlier this month ICE said No.

Parole was once the norm for arriving asylum seekers, but in recent years approvals have become increasingly rare. On a standardized form, Ice officers indicated María failed to prove she was “not a flight risk” or that her “continued detention was not in the public interest”.

That would be such an easy thing to prove, from inside a detention center, having fled for your life.

Six years ago, a gang in rural Guatemala murdered María’s last living relatives except her niece, who was a baby. María raised the child and is the only mother the girl has known. They fled toward the United States last Christmas after the gang murdered María’s partner and tried to shoot her.

So now we’re torturing both of them some more. I wish I could throw a bucket of piss in Trump’s face.