Return from Mexico
Imperfect Paradise
LAist Studios
4.5 • 535 Ratings
🗓️ 10 July 2024
⏱️ 46 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
In 2009, Gloria Arellano de la Rosa was banned from re-entering the U.S. for ten years, finding herself separated from her four children and husband. But unlike Daniel Zamora, she didn’t remake her life in Mexico. Every day she waited to go home to the U.S. Fernanda Echavarri tells the story of what happens when Gloria finally returns to the States and reunites with her family.
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Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | Support for LAIS comes from Car Pros Kia, featuring the 2027 Kia Telluride hybrid with a striking new design and family-friendly seating for up to eight. |
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| 0:32.4 | You're listening to Imperfect Paradise, the show about Hidden Worlds and Messy Realities. |
| 0:38.8 | I'm Antonio Ceregido. |
| 0:44.8 | As we've been producing this story about Daniel Samora and his return to Mexico, I've been thinking about my six years as a producer on NPR's Latino USA, where we covered a lot of immigration |
| 0:50.5 | stories. And there was one story in particular that my former colleague Fernanda |
| 0:55.6 | Chavarri reported on that kept coming up for me. Another story of a family separated by the border. |
| 1:02.1 | It was about a family in Tucson, Arizona, that had been split up in 2009. |
| 1:08.4 | The dad and all four kids, ages four to 16, were all U.S. citizens, but the mom, Gloria, was undocumented. |
| 1:17.0 | And in the process of trying to get her green card, she was required to travel to Mexico, where she was barred from returning to the U.S. for 10 years. |
| 1:25.9 | The 10-year barred to re reentry is the punishment for being in the |
| 1:29.4 | States without documentation for over a year. And it doesn't mean you could automatically come |
| 1:34.7 | back in 10 years. It just means you have to wait 10 years before you can legally try to apply. |
| 1:40.8 | Daniel Samura received the same penalty. But while Daniel found a sense of peace and belonging |
| 1:45.7 | in Mexico, that would be impossible for Gloria because her kids and husband were in the U.S. |
| 1:56.2 | For 14 years, Gloria woke up every day wishing she could be reunited with her four children in Arizona. |
| 2:03.9 | My former Latino USA colleague and immigration reporter Fernanda Chavarri has been following this family for nine of those years. |
| 2:14.2 | This past January, Fernanda called up Gloria because the thing she'd been dreaming of for over a decade was finally coming true. |
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