Mireya's third intersection (2024)

In January ofLast year Mireya called me to say she was going to Juárez.

She had undocumented in the United States for 25 years, but now she applied for a permanent stay.

There, Luz Mirella Zamora (she dedicates the situ name with ayTo prevent confusion;Ray-Ah) an employee of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs would be confronted with three piles of papers: green, blue and pink.Lack of paperwork.Pink and she would get stuck in Mexico until her extensive family could collect enough money for a smuggler to bring her home: $ 8,000 to hide in a vehicle, $ 15,000 if she wanted to sit in the passenger seat.

Mireya only had 30 days to come up with the money to travel to Juárez for her appointment, and from her voice on the phone - victoriously, nice - I could see that she had a kind of crazy plan.Mireya and her husband had asked the owner and the owner to end her suffering and save the flesh.Put the animal down and they dressed it in the grass.Now Mireya changed 80 pound beef into jerky to sell to the bag.

I told Mireya that I would go to Juárez with her.I had followed her story for a few years and I would be there to see how it turned out.Born, and eventually came to sell for Share Volkswagen Passat with a bloated water pump that someone had left to my mother and whose title was somehow signed with me.

I met Mireya for the first timeI 2014.

During one of my travels to Arkansas my father asked me if I knew I had another sister.From his 10th child, although they have not actually shared anything blood.

My parents had met Mireya and her five children by her husband, Robert, a third generation of Mexican American who worked in the area.Papa decided to sell a few hectares of their property on a loan with zero interest.

Mireya and Robert named the town of El Rancho and started filling it with geese, mules and a split track of pigs., the best known for its annual Rodeo, which has grown into a small city with the arrival of Latino and Marshallese immigrants.

The husband and children of Mireya are born and bred Americans, but she was missing a social security number and was forbidden to work.

Mireya never knew her real father, but my father started calling herof, daughter.AlmsierInCrazy.Always considered rebellious and mouthful, she was 'independent', 'direct'.

I enjoyed having Mireya and her family in the area, but I was furious when I discovered that she and Robert were left for two years on their payments for El Rancho;They seemed to inherit the property rather than paying.Kun one of my brothers and sisters is given country, the only value that my parents possess.

Mireya's uncle had once mocked her to try to learn English.In professor!She told people), praised her fluency.

"She is smart," I once heard her say to friends, her tone unmistakably creepy."

If we had been real sisters, we would have had an eruption somewhere along the way and have cleared the air.

By requesting a stay,Mireya feared that she would be an excursion to the US to be citizenship and immigration services, which occasionally marks people without paper for immigration and customs enforcement.

But she was tired of hiding, it was tired of being subject to the schedules of other people when she needed a lift for a household job.Intat back roads.

Until a few years ago it would be unthinkable to try to get a visa.legal.Or further than the guarantee of success.

In 2013, the Barack Obama government offered a solution: immediate family members of American citizens can apply for the exemption without leaving the country as long as they can prove that an extensive divorce would be a difficulty for their family members.illegal presence exemptionPardon.

Mireya did not have the $ 6,000 that it would cost to hire a good immigration lawyer, so she decided to go alone.

She joined a Facebook group of 36,000 members, people who registerPardonAnd their friends and families.Those paperwork have touched, consult the group the advice of their lawyer.When it comes through DHL, they post different selfies with the package of which the logo of red and yellow company has become a stand-in for the documents that have been sealed inside.

For three years, Mireya gathered the required documents, first in a manila folder and then in a growing harmonic file that is known as the 'folder'.To remind her why she spent so much time gaining her notarial content.

Mexico demanded that requests for an official birth certificate would be made personally.With a judge.A year and $ 400 later the new birth certificate arrived in Arkansas.Of course it requires in Spanish, and citizenship and immigration services require that all documents are translated into English, so Mireya also paid for it.

When she didn't have a laptop, she submitted some forms on her phone and went to the public library to print hardlings from others.She had crossed every box, she spent $ 1,300 on a physical examination and vaccinations.

Her exception was approved in the spring of 2017;Now she had to go to Juárez for a medical examination and an interview at the consulate.Border twice in 1989 and 1997 -and if you had entered the country illegally more than once, she said that Dinvisa application will be rejected.

Mireya told the Facebook group what the lawyer had said.God without being God, but I am nothing" - God without me remains God, but I am nothing without him.

Twenty -two people answered;They concluded that if she had been crossed long ago, she would be forgiven.

We drove to El Paso,The car from Park Mireya there and then take a van to Juárez.Robert and Mireya took the car at sunrise.itzanai - "nani" - and Fernando, teenagers, said farewell.With growing agitation until she was sitting and held him.

Mireya's oldest, Joaquín, 25, would lead us.1997, so he could get better medical treatment.The death of his son to strangers moments after she met them, as if her name is inseparable from the loss.

In her grief, Mireya had released a year before she returned to her Visa application.A rent in the city nearest El Rancho, the largely white and conservative each other, population 3,000.

Mireya had left her Pueblo for the first time at the age of 15.Her beloved grandmother was already in California and used to a sick family member.Find her grandmother.A girl only a year older, but much more worldly borrowed her money from a coyote and said she would go with her.The time that was crossed every year and Coyotes were cheap, $ 250 to $ 300.Mireya told me the story;I have edited her words for clarity and concise.

Over hier.gå. Border Patrol Manager who let her go - he was an angel, Mireyy said.

The coyotes who switched her to the rapes - she remembers him as an angel to come back.I am a woman, I love my husband, "she told me." "Mireya has reconciled the attack of men with God: maybe it was a test or the price of good things in the store.

In California she found work with babysitting for a few from Africa was the longest, darkest man she had ever seen and he gave Spanish at a university.Gave her lessons three times a week, a friendliness that would change her life.

She worked for a few years and gave birth to two boys, but she couldn't end each other.For a specialist.As an American citizen, he was eligible for Medicaid.was 23 years old.

There had been heavy rainfall and the local TV station released reports from migrants who had drowned.

She only wears her asthmain halter, some money and a change in clothing, she took a bus to the border where she met a group of other migrants.Well to show counterfeit documents to Border Patrol.

Mireya and the other climbed the riverbank where they found clothes left by other migrants.

In Juarez,An industry with hotels, restaurants and fixers originated around the American consulate, the only one in Mexico that processing immigrant visa applications.Mireya, Joaquín and I fought for the Conquistador Inn to wait for her appointments.

The medical examination of a private facility would be the first and more difficult of her two interviews.Reviews.Tattoos?What do they mean?Mireya would admit to tattoo eyebrows and show the butterfly at her crucifix - brave gangs - symbols, but everyone was nervous about everything.

In the factory she and other women received bracelets -coded bracelets and took off their clothes.Her stomach for the AR.

On the way out, she studied the bill.

The next few daysA group is collected in the lobby of Conquistador, where a holiday atmosphere is created, such as in places with a purgatory crisis.

Miguel was recorded in Mexico for five months., While he was waiting, but it didn't cover the mortgage loan and the bills.

Yovana and her sister Graciela, 14 years old her junior, confused everything.Yovana was the American citizen for the two, but strangers took the opposite when she was brown -oriented and her sister's fair.Yovana's parents were divorced shortly after she was born in us, her father then returned to Mexico and had Graciela with a woman with a light, Hazel-Eyed woman.his sister breed.

Graciela has her own young children.

Why apply now?"We have because of the president."

A few days after our stay, Miguel went to the lobby of Conquistador with a green slip.I believe in God." I believe in God.

High, brilliant anabella hurried the next morning - her visa was approved!She spread photos of her grandchildren on a table and gossip with Mirey.

The majority of our group in the hotel had agreements the same day, and the night before everyone who was collected in the lobby agreed to go together.Husband, their hands on each other's knees .Soscar showed us a video on his phone from a huge rave, he DJ -ed once a year.to Mexico and open a company.But he had a baby.

Mireya got up to keep the court, speak in Spanish and tell people from California and New York about her garden harvest on El Rancho - the tomatoes, onions and chili that she made to Salsa."It is very rare for me to act at Walmart," she boasted.On her phone she pulled a picture of a black bear - "and there are dangerous cougars!"

Blanca speculated about the Latino population of Arkansas, jobs, the presence of IS.Mireya spoke about her cleaning of the house - "For men it is easier that they work in construction" - and explained that most local population inElkins have been hospitable.

"Is that a sanctuary?"Yovana asked.

"Her ..."

It was rumor,In practice, appointments were served for the first time, served for the first time, so the next morning everyone was on the consulate for dawn and bought coffee in a corner shop.While the others were waiting.

Francisco was agitated.He is a naturalized citizen and works for $ 13 per hour at a factory in Texas that produces aluminum rotors;Father would be good - he had crossed illegally, but returned 12 years ago.Han's mother had never crossed, but she could not read or write.Had written them on a scrap paper and hid by hand.

We were in the Woestijnweg, our feet freezing on the floor, baked our head and shoulders while the sun came up.

There was a voice in the crowd - our people came out.

Claudia fell into her husband's arms, her cheeks wet with tears.

Graciela found her sister and smiled at what seemed the first time on days."I can now return to my children."

Oscar and the man who had shared his almond cake disappeared.

Francisco's parents went up, stiff and formula, but with the victory in their eyes.Francisco lifted a singing arm directly to heaven.Thank God!'He called loud enoughGudto belong.

Mireya came out and found Joaquín.She had a green slide in her hand.

Mireya Ville VenteIn the house of her family in Jalisco, further south, for DHL to deliver her visa at the airport in Guadalajara.

Mireya had not been to her Pueblo after 20 years.Cable has the money to have the icons in the chapel, the knife in gold, and a man named Alejandro rends his bell with a rope.

About 4,000 Mexicans live in Pueblo with a few hundred migrants from El Salvador and Guatemala, who come there to choose blackberries and raspberries in the city - most Mexicans could not wage.

The first night there was Tequila and Coca-Cola among the grandmother of Bougainvillea Mireya, had planted for decades.With laughter.

Earlier midnight the children went to bed and a cousin turned Mariachi Music's radio to slightly slower.

In the morning Mireya Duffels brought the hand-me-downs of her children to the best friend of her childhood, Ana..

In the coming days, Mireya went through the streets and greeted people.Remember me?"Do you remember me?

She bought snacks sold in a doorway and an old woman got out."You remember Mireya!"

“Mireya!I can remember these eyes! "

"My son Eliseo died in an accident. I'm in Arkansas -"

"Do you remember how I used to take you from your mother when she hit you?"

In.

Mireya continued.There was the Guaveboom.There was the clinic where her little brother Alfonso was born.Click up Mother, 'Motherf*cker, Hun Krone.

Several days at the DHL -Pack had still not arrived and Mireya had gone from weakening international visitors to the servant of everyone except Odilón.She rarely left the house, cooking, cleaning and washing her cousins ​​and washing of Joaquín, unable to say no.

Mireya and I shared a bed and Joaquín slept in the same room.Every night Mariachi music from the courtyard announced..

My family had passed the hat for the travel costs of Mireya, but it had clearly went to household invoices.There was no money left to get home.Robler called, desperate after her to return.She would sell homemade tamales as soon as her feet hit the ground in Arkansas if she could just get there.

Mireya was finally exhausted.

She fell into loneliness.

The men found the rat And a few days later the DHL package came., stopped in traffic, the surrounding mountains disappeared when the sun went under a border that eventually only became visible with brake light.

The driver studied Mireya in his rearview mirror and spoke about children who died in the desert and other serious things.Bastards, how barbaric"–Bastards, how cruel - she muttered from time to time, but she buzzed again with forward movement. Melankoli couldn't touch her. And I knew that Mexico finally made Mireya and me to me: this journey would bind us.

The driver left us in the US.Customs and Border Protection Station, empty a huge room at the moment.

A Border Patrol manager jumped up the DHL convulsion and shook from an inch thick papers he had, and then Mireya's Mexican passport and American visa.Echoes of the walls.

Mireya walked to the door that would take her to the United States where her taxi was waiting, and then she stopped and turned to look at the officer."He is another angel," she said."I will always remember his face."

This article appears in the printed edition of June 2019 entitled "Mireya's Third Crossing."