A Guatemalan woman in Los Angeles prays to be invisible before leaving home because she fears immigration agents, detention, and deportation. She has repeated the same prayer since arriving in the United States 40 years ago, despite multiple presidential administrations and repeated failed efforts to regularize undocumented people. She lives with three children and four grandchildren, has spent more time in the United States than in Guatemala, and has not returned even for her father’s funeral. She feels suspended between two identities, not fully Guatemalan and not fully belonging without papers. Increased ICE raids in Southern California intensify her anxiety, causing headaches, bone pain, depression, and panic attacks.
"Before leaving her home in Los Angeles, Laura looks up at the sky and whispers a prayer: Please God, make me invisible. She fears encountering immigration agents, getting detained, and being deported to Guatemala. It is the same prayer she has repeated since she arrived in the United States 40 years ago. Since then, seven presidents have served, and there have been multiple failed attempts to regularize millions of undocumented people. But Laura continues to live in the shadows, now with less hope than ever of changing her immigration status."
"One of her greatest fears is ending up on the radar of U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE), which has stepped up raids in Southern California since the summer. Cover me with your cloak, don't let them see me if those people are around, the 60-year-old woman pleads before boarding public transit to go earn a living cleaning homes and offices. Like so many other immigrants, she put down roots in the United States long ago."
"She has three children and four grandchildren. She has lived here longer than in Guatemala, a land she barely recognizes in the photos and videos she watches on her cellphone. Since she emigrated, she has never returned to her country, not even for her father's funeral. After four decades, this woman has been suspended between two worlds: she no longer feels completely Guatemalan, but without papers, she does not feel she fully belongs where she lives."
"“I arrived here and thought life would change for me, that I would achieve something, she recounts of her life in Los Angeles. It's very hard, very difficult not to have papers. I get very nervous thinking about ICE. Sometimes it even gives me headaches, my bones hurt, I get depressed, I have panic attacks.”"
Read at english.elpais.com
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