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Her daughters are U.S. citizens. A federal health rule won’t let this Guatemalan mother enter the country with them.

After drug cartel members began demanding monthly payments, she took her daughters to the border to seek asylum. They’ve been waiting in a Juárez shelter for more than a year.

Emilsa of Guatemala stands near the showers of a Ciudad Juárez migrant shelter with her daughters, both of whom are U.S. citizens, on Tuesday. The three have been at the shelter for over a year — longer than anyone else currently there.
One of Emilsa's daughters plays with a stuffed animal at a Ciudad Juárez migrant shelter on Tuesday. She and her sister are U.S. citizens, born in Minnesota. They have been living at the shelter with their mother for more than a year.

“I felt like my whole world had ended”

Turned away at the border


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