WASHINGTON (AP) — Sixteen-year-old Billy's friends at his rural high school in the South don't know he was one of thousands of children separated from their parents at the U.S.-Mexico border under then-President Donald Trump's zero tolerance immigration policy .
At school, where he plays football and soccer, Billy doesn't talk about what he went through — that his father was told six years ago that Billy was being given up for adoption and feared he would never see his son again. With the United States on the verge of an election that could put Trump back in office, Billy wants people to know that what happened to him and several thousand other children reverberates still. Some families have not been reunited, and many of those together in the U.
S. have temporary status and fear a victorious Trump carrying out promised mass deportations . “It was a very painful thing that happened to us,” said Billy, who was 9 at the time.
He did not want his full name or the state he lives in identified for fear of endangering his family’s asylum application. Trump has made his immigration views central to his campaign , accusing the Biden administration and Vice President Kamala Harris, the Democratic nominee for president, of failing to secure the southern border. Harris has not made immigration a campaign focus but has raised Trump's zero tolerance policy , one of his most contentious immigration actions as president.
The Trump administration aimed to criminally prosecute all ad.