Yanela Denise: 5 Fast Facts You Need to Know

Yanela Denise with her mother, Sandra Sanchez, at the border.

Yanela Denise, a 2-year-old Honduran girl, has become the symbolic face of the border separation debate, after a photographer’s photo of her crying was widely circulated and then, in edited fashion, made the cover of Time Magazine. TheTime Magazine cover is controversial because it shows the crying child positioned across from President Donald Trump.

However, the child’s father, who stayed in Honduras and didn’t support his wife’s trek to America, has spoken to multiple news outlets, saying he was told that Yanela Denise was never separated from her mother, whose name is Sandra Sanchez. That’s caused some to criticize the Time Magazine cover as misleading, while others say it captures the humanity in the immigration debate.

The now iconic photo was snapped by a Pulitzer Prize-winning photographer for Getty Images named John Moore. You can see other photos from the sequence that Moore took for Getty throughout this article. A Facebook fundraiser that reads “Reunite an immigrant parent with their child” and uses the photo of Yanela Denise has raised almost $19 million. The money is being raised for a group called RAICES, which the Facebook page says “directly funds bond to allow parents to reclaim their detained children.” Donors included Facebook’s Mark Zuckerberg.

Here’s what you need to know:

1. The Child’s Father Says She Was Never Separated From Her Mother & Is Doing Fine

A two-year-old Honduran asylum seeker, Yanela Denise, cries as her mother is searched and detained near the U.S.-Mexico border on June 12, 2018 in McAllen, Texas.

Many news sites spoke with the child’s father, Denis Javier Varela Hernandez, 32, who says that he was told the girl was not ever separated from her mother, his wife, Sanchez, 32. For example, the father told The Washington Post “that his child and her mother were not separated,” the newspaper reported, adding that a U.S. Customs and Border Protection spokesman confirmed “that the family was not separated while in the agency’s custody.”

ICE also confirmed to CBS News that “the mother and daughter are being housed together at a facility in Texas and her immigration proceedings are ongoing.” The dad told Daily Mail he was told the child is doing “fine.”

“The kid immediately started crying as she set her down,” Ruiz told BBC. “I personally went up to the mother and asked her, ‘Are you doing OK? Is the kid OK?’ And she said, ‘Yes. She’s tired and thirsty. It’s 11 o’clock at night.’” The agent told CBS, “We were patrolling the border. It was after 10 o’clock at night” when Sanchez and Yanela Denise “crossed the Rio Grande River into Texas illegally.”

“We asked her to set the kid down in front of her, not away from her, she was right in front of her…So we can properly search the mother,” Ruiz said, according to BBC.

According to Daily Mail, the father says he didn’t know his wife, who has three other underage children, was leaving with Yanela Denis for America, adding, “I didn’t support it. I asked her, why? Why would she want to put our little girl through that? But it was her decision at the end of the day.” He told the news site she was probably going to seek political asylum but came to America for a job and the “American Dream.” The dad works as a port captain in Honduras.

5. The Time Magazine Cover Provoked Controversy With the Trump Administration Saying It’s Misleading & Trump Opponents Saying It Captures the Heartbreak at the Border

View image on Twitter

CNN✔@CNN

“Welcome to America”: TIME magazine announces its new cover that shows President Trump and the two-year-old Honduran girl crying at the US-Mexico border https://cnn.it/2yrvZnc 

2:25 PM – Jun 21, 2018

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Critics of the president say the photo has become the symbol of what they call the cruelty in Trump’s approach to border enforcement (much as the photo of Elian Gonzalez became a symbolic image years ago), especially the practice of separating family units so parents can be criminally prosecuted for unlawful entry to the country. The president reversed course via an executive order that will allow family units to stay together but vows to continue his zero tolerate prosecution policy.

However, supporters of the president say Time Magazine used the photo in a misleading fashion to attack the president. “It’s shameful that dems and the media exploited this photo of a little girl to push their agenda,” White House spokeswoman Sarah Huckabee Sanders tweeted. “She was not separated from her mom. The separation here is from the facts.”

Time Magazine has said it stands by the cover.