San Salvador, El SalvadorMayra Machado spends her days in San Salvador fielding calls from parents in the United States desperate to have their children join them.
The parents’ anguish strikes a chord. Machado, who works with the Central American Minors Program focused on legally reuniting minors from El Salvador, Honduras and Guatemala with parents who migrated, had lived in the U.S. since she was five years old. She was first deported to El Salvador in January 2017, leaving behind her three kids, then 11, 10, and 7.
Desperate to reunite with them, she didn’t stay long before migrating again. But U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agents caught up with her after Machado got into a minor car accident in Arkansas while dropping off her
