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About 100 miles southeast, Maria, also an undocumented immigrant from Mexico, said that after 30 years in the Coachella Valley, she, too, plans to return to her home country and try to forge a new life in the western state of �Ѿ�����Dz���á��.

It also wasn’t safe for them there because of the high crime rate in Michoacan.

Citing the brutal violence in Michoacan — where Rafa was still living at the time — and the fact that he has no family to take care of him in Mexico, Leyva said he intended to apply for special immigrant juvenile status.

On the morning of Sept. 28, 2022, at their home in Mexico’s Michoacan state, the parents got into what seemed like just another argument, according to the children and a police report from authorities.

Alfonso Lira, 61, from �Ѿ�����Dz���á��, has worked at Chapter One in Santa Ana for more than a decade.