A group of Central American mothers searching for their children are in the United States this week to demand action to find their missing loved ones, who disappeared on their journeys to the U.S. The mothers are also denouncing human rights violations against Central American migrants. Members of the Caravan of Mothers of Disappeared Migrants from Central America shared their testimonies with lawmakers in Washington, D.C., yesterday. Here in New York, a group of mothers gathered at a rally in Queens Tuesday night. This is Aracely de Mejía, a mother from El Salvador, who has been searching for her son Edwin Alexander Colindres Ramírez since September 2012.

Arecely de Mejía: “We, mothers, don’t believe in borders. We have participated in different caravans. We have pushed for different petitions to find our children. We have done DNA tests with our governments in our home countries. But in El Salvador, no one has listened to us.”

In other immigration news, The Washington Post is reporting unpublished data from Customs and Border Protection show arrests by the Border Patrol shot up to its highest levels ever. Over 1.7 million people were detained along the U.S.-Mexico border during the 2021 fiscal year that ended in September.