They were one of the first families separated at the border. Two and a half years later, they’re still apart.

FORT MYERS, Fla. — She tries to avoid the word. What she says is that her mom is in Guatemala. Or that her mom has been deported and will try to come back soon.

But when her teacher, or her social worker, or her best friend Ashley asks, Adelaida sounds it out — one of the first words she learned in English. “They separated us.”

Adelaida Reynoso and her mother, María, were among the first migrant families broken up by the Trump administration, on July 31, 2017, long before the government acknowledged it was separating parents and children at the border.