Richmond Hill mother searches for six years for children

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Samantha and Justin

Allison Diaz

By Michelle Paynter - bio | email

RICHMOND HILL, GA (WTOC) - Imagine being separated from your children for six years, fighting with authorities from another country to bring them home.

That's what Richmond Hill mother Allison Diaz has been going through.

But as she told WTOC in an exclusive interview, she may now be closer than ever to being reunited with her children.

Diaz only has a few recent pictures of her children. The photographs were taken in Honduras where Samantha and Justin have been living with their father since 2003.

"I think he has probably told them I abandoned them," Diaz said. "For awhile they wouldn't talk to me, they hated me."

Diaz says her ex-husband, Justo Garcia, fled to Honduras to avoid criminal charges in Chatham County.

She says she took Samantha and Justin to go visit him in Honduras, he was supposed to bring the kids back to Savannah, but he never did.

Samantha was two years old when Diaz last saw her, she's eight now. Little Justin was only 10 months old, now he's six.

Both children are US citizens, born in Savannah and Diaz has papers showing she has legal custody.

"I've tried everything, I've tried calling talk shows, I've tried the media, I've tried attorneys, I've tried everything to get them back, writing congress, nobody could do anything," she said.

She posted their pictures on missing children websites.

Out of the blue Thursday evening, she got a call from a Immigration and Customs Enforcement agent in Savannah, her children had been found. They were at the airport in Mexico with their father.

"Their father, the children, the whole family was detained," Diaz said.

She was so close, but then the phone rang again. "It was 9pm when he called and told me the Mexican authorities let them go."

More than anything she wants to see Samantha and Justin again, so she can tell them how she feels. "I miss you, I love you, I didn't leave you."

It's been a long six years, but she not giving up hope of bringing them home.

ICE agents and the United States State Department are both involved in helping Diaz get her children back.