MIAMI-DADE COUNTY, Fla. — The tears came before the goodbye.
Inside Miami International Airport Friday, several children cried as they watched family members prepare to leave, scenes that underscored the painful reality facing families caught in the immigration system: Even when loved ones are reunited, a family can remain separated.
For the Domingo family, Friday brought another difficult decision.
Aiden Domingo, the youngest boy in their family, was being sent to Guatemala to live with his parents, who were deported there after being taken into immigration custody last month.
The decision would reunite the young boy with his parents, but it would also separate him from his four siblings in the United States.
“We’ve never been separated,” one family member said through tears while speaking to Local 10 News at MIA. “Our family has always been together. We’re always like one big family, but now we’re all just separating.”
The Domingo family’s separation began in early August, when the family was leaving church and heading out to shop for school clothes and shoes. Their 18-year-old daughter, Wendy Domingo, was driving the family’s car.
The Domingo family told Local 10 News last month that U.S. Border Patrol agents pulled them over and told Wendy Domingo, a U.S. citizen, that she had done nothing wrong. The family said an officer had scanned the vehicle’s license plate, which showed it was registered to a non-citizen.
Wendy Domingo’s parents, Maria Leiva Perez and Abraham Domingo, were taken into custody. Law enforcement sources previously told Local 10 News that the couple was arrested on Aug. 9.
Records show Leiva Perez had a final order of removal. Records also show Domingo did not have any legal immigration status, with nothing pending, including an asylum application or visa, according to a source familiar with the records.
The same source said records show Domingo was arrested in January 2018 on a child neglect charge and again in December 2024 on a domestic battery charge. The source said both arrests were felony cases. It was not immediately clear what the dispositions were in either case.
The couple was later deported to Guatemala, leaving Wendy Domingo to help care for her four younger siblings.
Video recorded during the initial traffic stop captured the family’s emotional goodbye. The footage, which was shared by the Guatemalan Maya Center, showed the children crying as their parents were taken away.
Now, the Domingo children are facing another separation.
As Aiden prepared to leave for Guatemala, the children’s grief was visible inside the airport. A boy as young as 3 or 4 was heard screaming and crying while moving through the security area, according to a reporter who witnessed the scene.
The Domingos were one of four families facing separations at the airport that day.
A GoFundMe page has been created to help the family financially.
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