Adriana had long looked forward to her 16th birthday — but when the date finally arrived, she celebrated not at home with her family and friends, but in a Texas center for immigrants that felt more like a prison.
“That day I didn’t do anything. I just sat there and I cried and cried all day,” Adriana recalls to Teen Vogue. Weeks earlier, she had fled El Salvador with her mother and sister, Allison, then 13, crossing the Rio Grande in order to escape violence. When they entered the United States, they didn’t have any authorization, and when they were picked up by border patrol officials, they said they were seeking asylum.
Recent US deportation statistics. 2016 ICE.