Thread by @DrEricDing

Mother/daughter sacrifices for love— Melissa’s mom Ana left to goto US 7 years ago to support her family—in a factory for Kardashians. Melissa traveled 2,500 miles, with 1 month in detention/foster care, to reunite with her mom. Melissa is just 10 yrs old.
nytimes.com/2021/05/09/us/…

2) “Will I recognize you?” she asked.
Her arrival on April 2 marked the end of a 2,500-mile journey that began in Guatemala in February, progressed over land through Mexico and then ended in a hazardous raft trip across the Rio Grande into Texas…

3) Melissa did it alone. She spent several weeks in a government-contracted group home before being allowed to join her mother and two older siblings in California.

4) Ms. Paredes, a single mother, had left behind 3 kids. She told them she would return in 5 years.
In Oxnard, CA, she found work packing cosmetics for a company owned by the Kardashian family by day and washing dishes at a restaurant by night. She lived in a converted garage.

5) “On Feb. 14, the four set out from Guatemala with other migrants heading north. Women and children squeezed into the back seat of the truck. Men traveled in the cargo bed.
“We went hungry,” Melissa said. The baby, Andrea Samantha, cried because her mother’s milk dried up.

6) “In the filthy stash houses where they spent each night, everyone slept on the ground. “There were so many ants,” Melissa said.
About 10 days into the trip, they reached Mexico-US border and were locked up with about 100 other migrants awaiting orders to cross the Rio Grande.