Salvadoran family who self-deported from US seeks to rebuild their lives
October 2025 272 views 3MIN 5 SECThis is the moment Yessenia Ruano stepped into her new life in El Salvador. The 38-year-old elementary school teacher decided to self-deport from the U.S. alongside her family, rather than live in fear of being separated from her two young daughters by U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement officers. “I was afraid of persecution from the government's anti-immigrant policy. I was scared and decided to leave, because I didn’t want to be detained one day at home or live in fear over there. I decided to come here and start over." Ruano illegally migrated to the U.S. in 2011 in search of the American dream, looking to escape poverty and violence. While her life in the U.S. was happy, her journey there had been traumatic. Having paid a smuggler, she was held against her will in the U.S. until she could pay off her debts. It led Ruano to later apply for a T visa, which is available to victims of human trafficking and allows people to remain in the U.S. legally if they help authorities detect or prosecute criminal cases. But after President Donald Trump took office in January, everything changed. She went from going to ICE offices once a year to report, to every month. At the end of May, ICE officials warned her that she had to return to El Salvador until the process concluded or else be detained and deported.
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