Xu Yuejun and his daughter Ziyu at the T’Way counter to get their boarding passes.
Commonwealth Ports Authority Executive Director Leo Tudela, right, poses for a photo with Xu Yuejun and daughter Ziyu before they boarded a plane to China on Friday morning.
A CHINESE tourist and his two-year-old daughter were stranded for five days at the Francisco C. Ada/Saipan International Airport after the child’s mother was denied entry by Customs and Border Protection and sent back to Hong Kong, Variety learned.
The woman, Cha Xiaomei, 27, her husband Xu Yuejun, 44, and their daughter Xu Ziyu arrived on Saipan on Saturday night on a T’Way Air flight from Hong Kong.
Xu Yuejun and his daughter were “cleared” by CBP and were waiting in the airport’s arrival area when he was told that there was “something wrong” with his wife’s travel document, and that it did not match her answers to the CBP official, who then denied her entry.
The mother was in possession of the couple’s money.
Xu Yuejun and his daughter remained in the airport’s arrival area and continued waiting for Cha Xiaomei.
On Sunday, Commonwealth Ports Authority Executive Director Leo B. Tudela said he saw the man giving his daughter a bath in the restroom.
The following day, Tudela saw them again, this time walking around the airport. He said he was told by airport employees that the father and daughter slept in the hallway.
“I thought, something’s really wrong here,” Tudela said.
Through an interpreter, he learned from Xu Yuejun that he was still waiting for his wife to be “cleared” by CBP.
The next day, Tudela said he noticed that the child’s face was red, and she had fever.
“I felt sorry for the little girl,” Tudela said.
He also found out that since Saturday night, airport custodians were providing the father and daughter with food.
Tudela said he decided to bring the father and daughter to Century Hotel. “I used my own funds to pay the hotel and gave them pocket money to buy food and medicine for the little girl. CPA did not pay anything, but it was a humanitarian gift from the people of CNMI,” Tudela said.
Two hours after he dropped the father and the girl at the hotel, one of its employees called him and said that the child was vomiting and had a high fever.
Tudela drove back to the hotel and took the child to the hospital. He said the owner of a store next to the hotel, who is also Chinese, provided the girl with medicine.
On Thursday night, when the little girl’s fever had subsided, Tudela brought her and her father back to the airport so they could board a T’Way Air aircraft that was scheduled to depart.
Tudela said he had to convince the airline manager to let the father and the little girl get on the plane so they could be reunited with the child’s mother in Hong Kong.
The father and his daughter left aboard the Hong Kong-bound plane at 1:20 a.m., Friday.
“T’way Airlines was very helpful, cooperative and accommodating in allowing the man and his child to return to Hong Kong,” Tudela said.
“These are human beings. We are all God’s children so let us help each other. And I am happy to help,” he added.
Xu Yuejun tries to comfort his daughter, Ziyu, who was crying at the Francisco C. Ada/Saipan International Airport.
Xu Yuejun tries to make a call as daughter Ziyu cries.
