Ashoka Mukpo:

An Immigrant Father Is Reunited With His Four-Year-Old Daughter After Nearly 10 Months Apart.

Caught at the Border

On the day last December when Ricardo and his daughter Luna crossed the border into South Texas from Mexico, it was unusually cold. For the first time in over a decade, snow had fallen in McAllen, Texas, and residents of the city had woken up to the rare sight of the arid brown landscape dusted in white. For Ricardo, that snow meant danger. The two had left Guatemala about a month ago, but they hadn’t packed for cold weather, and Luna, only three years old, didn’t have the right clothing for the freezing temperature. Deciding that it would be safer to take his chances with the Border Patrol rather than being exposed to the elements, Ricardo and his daughter set off along the Rio Grande to look for an agent.

A few hours later, they found one, who took the two of them into custody and placed them in a Border Patrol processing facility known as La Hielera — “The Icebox.” It was the last afternoon Ricardo and Luna would spend together for months, although neither of them knew it yet.

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