Thread by @TexasTribune

1/ This is Heyli. She is a six-year-old migrant. In a video call with her mother on Friday, she was sobbing uncontrollably — rubbing her eyes and rocking back and forth.

She’s waiting to be reunited with her father. bit.ly/2LjJQSH

2/ Heyli is in an Arizona shelter, waiting to be reunited with her father, Carlos, who is in a detention center in South Texas. bit.ly/2LjJQSH

3/ Her dad is at the Port Isabel detention center, where some migrant parents are being held in limbo as they wait to be reunited with their children. They’re not free to leave the facility, but they lack access to phones or commissary accounts. bit.ly/2LjJQSH

4/ As parents like Carlos shuffle through various detention centers, their children have been stuck in the same shelters for weeks, waiting for the government to figure out how to reunite them. bit.ly/2LjJQSH

5/ Cutting off communications for detained migrants has prompted fear and panic from their families and advocates. bit.ly/2LjJQSH

6/ Carlos thought he would be reunited with Heyli last week, when he says he was loaded onto a bus with two dozen other migrant parents separated from their children at the border.

Like him, they thought they were on their way to being reunited. bit.ly/2LjJQSH

7/ Instead, the bus drove through the night, only to return to the detention facility where he was being held an hour later. The migrants received no explanation. bit.ly/2LjJQSH

8/ The bus trip was on Tuesday. Since Wednesday, Carlos has been held virtually incommunicado at the Port Isabel facility. bit.ly/2LjJQSH

9/9 Heyli, who can speak to her mother in Honduras through video call, said through tears: “I never imagined this.”

“I know, love,” her mother said. “But, look, you have little time left there. Don’t cry, love. You’ll be coming back soon.” bit.ly/2LjJQSH