LOS ANGELES/PETEN, Guatemala (Reuters) - On Aug. 24, after waiting for five months in the violent Mexican border city of Ciudad Juarez for a U.S. asylum hearing, Elida, a Guatemalan migrant, decided to send her disabled 12-year-old son Gustavo into the United States alone.
Elida feared for Gustavo's safety in Mexico, after a stranger tried to take him from her, she said. She had been told by other migrants that as an unaccompanied child Gustavo would be detained by U.S. immigration agents and then released to his grandfather who lives in South Carolina.