President Trump signed a proclamation for the deployment of National Guard troopsto the southern border last week, seemingly in reaction to a so-called “caravan” of Central American migrants traveling through Mexico, some to the U.S. to seek asylum.
Many of these migrants are women and children, fleeing violence in their home countries, like one El Salvadoran woman and her son who NPR has been following for more than a year.
She and her then 17-year-old son arrived at the Mexico – U.S. border in south Texas in early 2017. The mom recounted how she’d fled El Salvador because of threats by one of the most dangerous gangs in the world, the Mara Salvatrucha — better known as MS-13.
