Young Victims of Immigration Wait, Hope for Parents’ Return

AGUA PRIETA, Mexico —  “Mama! Mama!” the boy squealed to the woman who walked through the door, his arms outstretched for a hug. As she scooped him up, the child wrapped his arms around her neck and fell silent--calm and content.

Moments later, the toddler wriggled out of her embrace and waddled over to the door she had come through. Placing his chubby hands on the wire screen, he peered through to the courtyard outside.

“Mama,” he said again, only this time more quietly--this time, less sure.

The woman wasn’t his mother at all, only a visitor to the home known as Casa Pepito--the House of Children. But that mattered little to 2-year-old Carlitos. He simply wanted to be held; that’s all the children here want.

Casa Pepito is an orphanage of sorts, although its operators prefer to call it a temporary home. Most of the 300 or so children who have passed through were left behind by parents headed illegally into the United States, or were separated from their families during the trek. Others tried crossing alone.

“The question I have is why the mother doesn’t come back to find them,” says Rosa Isela Acosta, director of the city’s family development agency, which runs the home. Acosta empathizes with the financial need driving her countrymen north, but she cannot comprehend how mothers or fathers could abandon their children in the name of making a better life for the family they’ve torn apart.

“I think it’s better to eat beans and tortillas,” she says, “but to be together.”

Town ‘Looks Like Kosovo’

Casa Pepito is three miles east of the port of entry that connects Agua Prieta and Douglas, Ariz.--the busiest crossing point in the United States for illegal immigrants.

The U.S. Border Patrol apprehends 800 to 1,400 people daily from the mesquite-shrouded ranches and deserts of southeastern Arizona and deposits them back in Agua Prieta, where city leaders estimate another 4,000 people arrive daily from across Mexico intent on crossing the border.

The influx has transformed this place from a quiet border town of taco houses, souvenir shops and factories into a bustling staging ground for would-be crossers and guides, known as coyotes. Dozens of guest houses and new hotels have cropped up, catering primarily to those awaiting a chance to head north. Crime has risen; social services have been strained.

“It looks like Kosovo,” says Vicente Teran, who after 2 1/2 years as the city’s mayor resigned in March to run for Mexico’s Congress.

If the city is a war zone, the children of Casa Pepito are its casualties.

The home, which opened in September 1998, sits off a gravel road behind a 20-foot-high white concrete wall. Out front is a broken carousel. Around back a jungle gym and seesaws provide a makeshift playground. A clothesline strung with bibs, socks and jumpers hangs above the equipment.

A guard monitors the locked gate leading into the property, while five other employees--three to care for the children, a cook and a maid--work in shifts to keep the facility running around the clock. A physician and psychiatrist visit regularly.

The home can house up to 30 children, although in its first six months only two or three resided here. Now that many may arrive daily, Acosta says. On one April afternoon, 12 children lived at the home--the youngest about 3 weeks old, the oldest 15. Another 28 children had been placed in foster care.

“We have a lot of sons here,” says house manager Amalia Zozaya.

Faces of Sons, Daughters on Wall

The faces of those sons and daughters, photocopied onto fliers that provide their birth dates and hometowns, hang in frames on the walls of the house, like “Wanted” bulletins in a post office. Acosta moves from one to another, recounting the sad tales that brought each child into her care.

There are Mario and Christian, the brothers whose mother is a coyote. Just 3 and 5 years old, the boys arrived at Casa Pepito in January 1999 after a neighbor reported them abandoned in their home in Agua Prieta. Their mother eventually was found--pregnant again and in jail for smuggling immigrants. When her third son, Diego, was born, Acosta’s agency took custody and placed the boy in a foster home.

There’s Agustin, just 7 months old, who was brought to the home less than two weeks after he was born, and Estefani, who arrived when she was 30 days old. Now 1 1/2, she still wears the tiny heart-shaped earrings she came with. Relatives had tried to sell them on the U.S. side of the border, Acosta says.

And there is Carlitos, a resident of Casa Pepito since September. When Carlitos arrived, his 16-year-old mother, Myra, already lived at the home after being caught smuggling people into the United States. One afternoon a woman arrived with the toddler in tow and announced: “This is Myra’s boy. I’m not going to be in charge anymore.” By November, Myra was gone. Acosta is trying to find a foster family for her son.

As Acosta speaks, Mario snuggles against her on a sofa in the living room. In the corner, a television blares a Spanish cartoon. Agustin, wearing a navy “Elmo” jumpsuit, circles the room in a baby walker, his curious eyes following Carlitos as he moves from person to person in search of more hugs.

In the back of the house are three bedrooms, one each for the older boys and girls, the other a nursery for the babies. Inside, the home’s youngest resident--3-week-old Jesus--sleeps on his back in a crib, a blanket wrapped around his delicate frame, a teddy bear by his side.

Jesus and his mother were separated while crossing the border, as often happens when smugglers insist someone else carry a child so his mother can keep up with the group. A boy delivered the infant to Casa Pepito. He didn’t know the mother’s identity or even the child’s name. Acosta and her employees christened him Jesus.

“They don’t care if it’s a son or daughter or family,” Acosta says of the smugglers. “It’s merchandise.”

Some of the children eventually are reunited with family. Acosta’s agency posts their photographs on an interagency computer system that can be accessed across Mexico. If no one returns to claim the children, the agency attempts to place them in foster care or put them up for adoption.

Such is the case of 5-month-old David, whose father brought him to Casa Pepito when he was 2 weeks old, after the mother abandoned the two to head to the United States. The father, Acosta believes, has since joined her.

David is awaiting adoption by Linda Mazur, an attorney who lives in Studio City with her husband, a screenwriter. The couple began trying to adopt a child in the United States 1 1/2 years ago after several failed attempts to have a child of their own. When Mazur learned of Casa Pepito through friends who did charity work, she paid a visit in January. After seeing David, she began returning every few weeks. She and her husband hope to have him home by September.

“He may be 10 months old by the time we get him out, but we’ll have spent 5 months bonding with him,” said Mazur, sitting in a rocking chair with David nestled in the crook of her arm during her most recent visit to the home.

For other children, Casa Pepito might be the only home they ever know.

“It’s not fair to them to live in this house,” Acosta says. “We try to love them, but it’s not the same. They need the care, the love, the opportunity to live in a family.”

Until that happens, the children look for love where they can. From the women who work here. From one another--playing, fighting and protecting each other like brothers and sisters. And even from strangers.

When the female visitor Carlitos had welcomed readied to leave, he and some of the other children were out in the courtyard playing on tricycles and toy trucks. One by one they hugged her goodbye, some returning for a second embrace. When at last she walked through the gate, their eyes followed, watching her go.

Or perhaps, like Carlitos, they simply were hoping to see Mama return.