Nory and her Mother Were Deported Together. Then She was Orphaned.

Estela’s death at 45 followed her rapid deportation, leaving her teenage daughter to navigate a new life in Guatemala on her own — afraid of the same gang violence her mother originally fled.

Two days before Estela Ramos Baten was detained during a mandatory immigration check-in, she turned 45. It would be her last birthday.

The mother-of-seven’s health was already fragile when she and her teenage daughter, Nory Sontay Ramos, were deported to their native Guatemala on July 4 — as The 19th reported first. Ramos Baten’s arms ached after years of labor as a seamstress, but as persistent as that pain was, it hadn’t devastated her body like her inflamed liver and high blood pressure. She was in such physical torment that she could no longer work.

Keep Reading

If young people “don’t have the opportunity to do a full consult with an immigration lawyer, they may not have any idea about the range of immigration relief types that are available to them,” said Leecia Welch, deputy litigation director for Children’s Rights, a New York-based nonprofit that challenges government systems that harm children and families. “It’s possible that Nory might have had her own independent claim that was essentially cut off by sending her back.”