‘Yo Soy la Mamá’: A Migrant Mother’s Struggle to Get Back Her Son

Over the final four months of 2021, Olga, a Honduran immigrant in Hollywood, Fla., grew increasingly panicked. She could not find her 5-year-old son, Ricardo. After she’d fled her homeland to escape her abusive husband, the man also migrated, disappeared with the boy and broke off contact.

By day, Olga lived her life. She cut, colored and styled hair at a Miami salon, chatting with clients as if she hadn’t a care in the world. She mothered her 7-year-old daughter, Dariela, straining to distract her from the fact that her little brother was missing. But the nights were tough. “I cried into my pillow,” Olga said. “Where was my sweet little boy? Was he, at least, safe?”

He was not.

By the time Olga, then 28, tracked her son to Massachusetts, he had been removed from his father over allegations of physical abuse. Calling office after office of the Department of Children and Families, she finally reached a woman who turned out to be Ricardo’s caseworker.

“Who are you?” the woman said.

“Yo soy la mamá,” Olga replied, bursting into tears.

In early January 2022, Olga, who asked that her last name be withheld to protect her children, flew to Boston. It would only be a matter of presenting evidence — Ricardo’s birth certificate, videos of him on her phone, DNA if necessary — before she could take him home, she thought.

But when immigration and child welfare are involved — two contentious issues and their beleaguered systems — nothing is straightforward.

Under an interstate compact, Massachusetts formally asked Florida to approve the relocation. Florida said no. Though a caseworker found Olga to have a clean record, a proper home and sufficient income, she denied the move because Olga was not a legal U.S. resident.