Honduran teens, mom navigate life after US reunion

In this July 24, 2014 photo, Nicole Valerio Zelaya, center, 12, sits with her mother Denia Zelaya, right, and her sister Anita Medina Zelaya, 16, at their mother's home in Miami. The family, originally from Honduras, has been reunited in Miami, having arrived separately. As thousands of Central American children have come across the Southwest border these past months, this family found each other again. (AP Photo/Lynne Sladky) In this July 24, 2014 photo, Nicole Valerio Zelaya, center, 12, sits with her mother Denia Zelaya, right, and her sister Anita Medina Zelaya, 16, at their mother's home in Miami. The family, originally from Honduras, has been reunited in Miami, having arrived separately. As thousands of Central American children have come across the Southwest border these past months, this family found each other again. (AP Photo/Lynne Sladky)

By Associated Press August 11, 2014 9 min read

MIAMI (AP) – The mother arrived early at Miami International Airport, pacing the baggage claim hall until, at last, she spotted her.

Denia Zelaya had last seen her eldest daughter nearly 10 years earlier. On an early morning in 2004, she kissed Anita’s head as the girl slept, then slipped out of her family’s house.

“I didn’t tell her goodbye,” the mother recalls. “I knew if she awoke, I couldn’t leave.”

Anita was just 6, her younger sister, Nicole, not yet 3. But Zelaya had made a choice: to flee the violent gangs in her native Honduras and come to the U.S. to find work. The plan was to save enough for a smuggler and then send for her children when they were old enough to endure the journey.

This past April, Nicole, now 12, made it safely across the Texas border and on to Miami. That inspired 16-year-old Anita to attempt the trip with her own child, 3-year-old Emily, the granddaughter Zelaya had never met.