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Agonies of Exile
Deported Mothers, Separated From Their Children, Wait in Limbo at the Mexican Border
When deported mother Yolanda Varona received a call from photojournalist Natalie Keyssar on Friday morning, her voice was quivering. Varona, a Mexican mother of two and leader of the Dreamers Moms of Tijuana, spoke clearly — and forcefully — about her feelings on Donald Trump’s plans to build a wall to fortify the border between the United States and Mexico. In an executive order signed Wednesday evening, President Trump called for the “immediate” construction of the barrier that has already escalated tensions between the two nations.
“I woke up yesterday to this news, and it filled me with sadness,” Varona told Keyssar, a photographer who documented her life in Tijuana — separated from her children — last spring. “To me, the wall means misery. It makes me think of death, of how many people die trying to cross these borders, and it represents hatred for my community. It means separation of families.”
Mexican federal policemen conduct a tour of the U.S.-Mexico border wall near Tijuana on April 8, 2016.
Natalie Keyssar
Varona is one of scores of women who have been separated from their children both legally and physically after being deported from the United States. But she has bonded with others facing a similar plight through the activist organization Dreamers Moms. Though their stories vary, the women share a similar fate: They wait in Tijuana, often for years, for a chance to see their families. Some women have lost contact, while others find ways to connect with their children from afar.
Keyssar, whose reporting for this story was supported by the International Women’s Media Foundation, spent time with half a dozen Dreamers Moms during her week in Tijuana. Her photographs convey a sense of loss, but the women remained hopeful.
One Dreamers Mom, Emma Sanchez Paulsen, is married to an American military veteran who brings her children, who were born in the United States, to visit as often as they are able. As Sanchez Paulsen waits out a 10-year-ban from the United States for entering the country illegally, she finds ways to connect with her children. In her self-published children’s book “El Pequeño Elfo,” Sanchez-Paulsen explains the separation to her children through illustrations and words.
Montserrat Godoy, another Dreamers Mom, first entered the U.S. illegally with her husband and settled in North Carolina. When she left the relationship and the country because of spousal abuse, she was ultimately separated from her children, who are citizens, when she was denied re-entry to the United States. Godoy said that despite being awarded joint custody by a North Carolina court, the arrangement is untenable and their contact is limited — she remains behind a wall with her children on the other side.
Speaking from limbo in Tijuana, Varona emphasized the human suffering that Trump’s rhetoric obliterates. “He is talking about people,” she told Keyssar. “We feel and love and cry too. We need to be with our families. We need to be making bridges, not borders and divisions. That is what the world needs right now.”
Emma Sanchez-Paulsen displays family photographs on a shelf in the living room of her Tijuana home.
Natalie Keyssar
A group of children play at a spring festival in the small border town of Jacumel near Tijuana, on April 8, 2016.
Natalie Keyssar
Emma Sanchez Paulsen talks to her son, who lives in the United States, over Facetime from the living room of her Tijuana home.
Natalie Keyssar
A Mexican federal policeman stands outside a car window during a tour of the wall at Mexico’s border with the U.S., near Tijuana, on April 8.
Natalie Keyssar
Maria de la Luz Montalvo stands on the stairways of her Tijuana apartment building. Also a Dreamers Mom, she was deported from the U.S. nearly six years ago. Her husband, a U.S. Citizen, abused her. Stories of abuse are common among Dreamers Moms, who say they often have no legal recourse to take if their husband is a citizen. De la Luz Montalvo said that her husband does not allow her to speak to her children on the phone and has only permitted one visit.
Natalie Keyssar
A statue of the Christ stands near the neighborhood of Camino Verde in Tijuana on April 9.
Natalie Keyssar
A detail of a sculpture of Christ on the cross, which is displayed at a migrant shelter in Tijuana on April 5, 2016. Many of the Dreamers Moms have stayed in shelters like this one at some point in their journeys.
Natalie Keyssar
Emma Sanchez Paulsen shows her children’s baby teeth, which she keeps as one of the many tokens of her family that resides on the other side of the border.
Natalie Keyssar
El Pequeño Elfo is a children’s book that Emma Sanchez-Paulsen wrote and illustrated to explain the separation to her children.
Natalie Keyssar
Emma Sanchez Paulsen poses for a portrait in her bedroom in Tijuana. Sanchez Paulson, who has been deported and banned, is married with three children.
A donkey is tied up near the border wall in Tijuana, on April 5.
Natalie Keyssar
Leticia Orozco and Manuel Aguirre peer through the border at their children and grandchildren at Friendship Park in Tijuana on April 9.
Natalie Keyssar
A Mexican federal policeman at the border wall near Tijuana.
Natalie Keyssar
For those women/mothers whose husbands were abusing them inside the USA, their children are also likely being abused. The US Courts do not do enough to remove and PROTECT these children from their abusive, sick fathers or in some cases, sick mothers. Parents may not be Citizens, but at the least we could allow them access to their children with protected visitations. The Courts in the USA could do a lot better if laws were not written by so many men, who do not give a damn about women’s rights, children’s rights. We cater to men, and we do damage to children when we do not consider all the facets of a family coming here. Under the Republican agenda, we cannot seem to find enough reasons to hurt those most vulnerable people, coming here for refuge from all sorts of horrors. If you faced these endless horrors, wouldn’t you run towards the LIGHT, too? If you could be honest, you know you would.
Does Mexico block her children from joining her?
Why wouldn’t they leave such a racist country and live with their mother?
Build the wall. Tall and strong. Mexicans – go home.
It is a sin to despise one’s neighbor, but blessed is the one who is kind to the needy.
— Proverbs 14:21
How about the religious right follows the teachings of the Bible instead of spending all of their rage and energy on making it harder for women to get pap smears? What did breast exams ever do to them?
Woe to those who make unjust laws, to those who issue oppressive decrees, to deprive the poor of their rights and withhold justice from the oppressed of my people, making widows their prey and robbing the fatherless. What will you do on the day of reckoning, when disaster comes from afar? To whom will you run for help? Where will you leave your riches?
— Isaiah 10:1-3
There’s something about this that is very strange. How can a woman be married to an American veteran and not be allowed into the U.S.? That just is not the way I thought the law was supposed to work on this.
I’m still waiting for the marches in Mexico City against a Government that is so horrible that millions of its citizens want to escape.
We have been propping up a parasite Nation for decades.
The wall will force a badly needed Revolution in Mexico.
Big business in it’s never ending search for slave labor wants Mexico just the way it is.
Ford didn’t build plants there because they love Mexicans, they did it to take advantage of a crumbling society.
Returning 11 million pissed off illegals whom have experienced life in America, back to Mexico, is the best way to make a better future for Mexico.
Of course, the US government did not force her to break the US law and enter our country illegally for the purpose of giving birth to naturally-born US citizens, aka ‘anchor babies’. And absolutely NOTHING prevents her from getting back her children.
Ahhh… the heartbreaks…
Looking forward for future stories on pedophiles suffering while in prison for being kept away from the objects of their affections.
Are you advocating for open borders? If someone commits a crime for the benefit of their children, does that absolve them of culpability? Should all law-breakers who have been removed from their children be immediately released from prison, no matter the nature of their crime? It is easy to argue for compassion when you are describing individual cases, but the fact is that forgiving the crime of entering the country illegally is in essence creating a policy of unregulated open borders. It is also grossly unfair to the people who have waited years, paid high fees, and worked their way through the legal immigration system.
My values normally align with Democratic Socialists, but I do not understand why support for illegal immigrants is the default position for leftists.
Exactly.
And we owe it all to the likes of Deborah Wassermann Shultz !!!
NAZIS in JEWISH CLOAKING !!!