Elena Santizo sat by the departure gate in El Paso, Texas on Friday with a rosary around her neck, waiting nervously to board a plane for the first time in her life. Simply riding the escalator up to airport security gave the 39-year-old mother the jitters. She opted for the stairs instead.
“To tell my story is difficult,” she said. “Everything I’ve lived through, so much, ever since I left Guatemala.”
Santizo fled violence and an earthquake that destroyed her adobe home in the rural village where her family grew corn, beans, and squash. When she surrendered to border patrol agents in El Paso this spring, border authorities detained her and took her three children. She said she didn’t hear from them for 20 days.
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