Now imagine hearing from this child for the first time in decades and being told they want to meet you. This emotional rollercoaster is the exact situation Wisconsin resident Kathy Amaya finds herself in.
Amaya gave birth to David Amaya in Chicago in 1976. She raised David until he was a toddler, but the boy went missing one day. His estranged father kidnapped him and took him to Mexico.
Amaya reported her son missing, but authorities told her there was little they could do since he was out of the country.
"I went to file a report, and they were saying they couldn't do anything because he was in Mexico," Amaya said.
David’s father left him in Mexico with his grandparents are only visited several times throughout his life. His mother never heard from him or knew where he was. In the meantime, David went to school in Mexico and began his career as a musician.
But eventually David, who retained his American birth certificate, decided he wanted to return to America. He is, after all, an American citizen. He tried crossing the Mexico-USA border illegally on October 30th but was detained by Border Patrol agents.
The agents did not believe he was American, and decided to call the woman listed on his certificate.
"They told me that they had someone detained that was crossing the border and he said his name was David Amaya," Kathy Amaya said. "I wasn't sure if it was him, so we did some research and found out it was."
David was admitted to the country and is now being sheltered at Iglesia de Cristo Ministerios Llamada Final Inc. in San Diego. He has arranged a date to meet both his mother and his four half-siblings in Wisconsin. The two had an emotional phone call recently in which they spoke for the first time in almost four decades.
A drummer by trade, David says he now wants to get his music career off the ground in America and learn English. Kathy, in the meantime, can’t wait to meet the son she thought she would never see again.
