Opinion: I saw the impact of Trump's immigration cruelty. We can't go back.

One of Democratic presidential nominee Kamala Harris’ campaign slogans is a simple: We’re not going back. That can mean many things to different people, but for me, it recalls a singular moment from Donald Trump’s presidency.

In 2017, shortly after the Trump administration began separating children from their families at the border, a draconian move to curb the number of migrants, I was tipped off to a lawsuit the American Civil Liberties Union was filing to get a Congolese mother and her daughter reunited.

They were among the first to be separated, the 6-year-old literally pulled from her mother’s arms by immigration officers in San Diego, even though the pair had entered the country seeking asylum and followed all the appropriate steps.

The cruelty of Trump's family separation policy still haunts me

The little girl had been flown to a facility in Chicago – where I worked at the time as a columnist for the Chicago Tribune – while the mother remained at a detention center in California.The ACLU attorney handling the case told me at the time: “The daughter is taken away, and the mother doesn’t speak to the daughter for four days. In those four days, she has no idea what has happened to her daughter. … Chicago might as well be the moon for this family from a little village in the Congo. They have no idea why they’re separated, where each other are.”

The girl turned 7 alone, apart from her mother.

A mother and child forced to suffer, all thanks to the Trump administration

I wrote columns about their plight, as did other news organizations. After months, thanks to the relentless work of the ACLU, the mother and daughter were reunited in Chicago.

The following year, I went to the shelter, housed in an old convent, where the then-8-year-old girl and her mother were still staying as their asylum case moved forward.

I was speaking with the shelter’s director and she said their operation might have to move out of the convent and relocate.

The little girl heard our talk of having to move and she teared up and buried her head in the director’s shoulder.

“I’m scared,” she cried.

I wrote this at the time: “It was like someone flicked a switch. The bouncy, inquisitive little girl was gone, and the child left behind was hollow and frightened. It hit me what this little soul had been cloaking, how the trauma of all she endured at the hands of our government was right beneath the surface. Of course she’s not OK. She may never be OK.”

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That moment is seared into my memory. I can recall every detail of the room we were in, the fear on the poor child’s face, the comforting sound of the director’s voice as she tried to calm her.

I remember sitting in my car outside the convent, crying and enraged. My country had done this. My country had ruined this child. And for no damn reason.

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It was pure cruelty from the minds of anti-immigrant zealots who saw migrants as “others” unworthy of basic human decency.That was the moment I knew I would never forgive Trump. For all the chaos he went on to cause, all the lies, all the bullying and even bloodshed, that was the nadir. I still bristle at the thought of it and feel my blood pressure rise.So when Harris says “We’re not going back,” when her supporters chant that at rallies, my mind goes straight to that frightened child in Chicago and to the knowledge that if he’s elected again, the cruelty will be worse.

I’ve looked in the eyes of an innocent victim of Trump’s cruelty, and I will tell you true: We absolutely cannot go back.

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This article originally appeared on USA TODAY: Opinion: Trump's cruelty to immigrants does real damage. I've seen it