Lost in the Arizona desert, pregnant and alone: Guatemalan woman tells her story

Yahoo

07-05-2025

PHOENIX ‒ Erika Mateo resigned herself to the grim reality that she would die in the desert. Worse was the thought of losing her unborn daughter.
The 24-year-old was nearing the final month of her pregnancy and wandering alone through the Sonoran Desert south of the United States-Mexico border. She had been separated from her group, unable to keep up because of her condition.
'Some of them tried to help me, but they were also afraid of being caught,' Mateo said in a Phoenix hotel room, shortly after her release from Department of Homeland Security custody.
"That's when I suddenly found myself lost, not knowing where to walk or where the path was,' she said in Spanish to a reporter from the Arizona Republic, part of the USA TODAY Network.
In the week since her desert ordeal, Mateo's story has become a flashpoint, sparking community outrage, drawing international attention and pushing local elected officials to help save her from having to choose between quickly leaving the United States with her newborn or leaving her behind under state care.
Thanks to that attention, Mateo has avoided expedited deportation proceedings, becoming one of a handful of people to receive a 'Notice to Appear' from the Border Patrol – the first step in the process to petition for asylum, which has been rarely afforded since President Donald Trump returned to office.
In February and March, the first two complete months of this Trump administration, only three people have been issued this form after being held in Border Patrol custody, as reported by CBP's open data portal. The figures for April remain undisclosed.
By comparison, in December, the last full month of President Joe Biden's tenure in office, more than 7,000 Notices to Appear were issued.
Desert rescue
Mateo had traveled from her home in Guatemala, now more than 2,000 miles away from the maze she was traversing to enter the United States. Mateo left behind a large family: her mother and father as well as her brothers and sisters. She remained in contact with them along her journey.
In the interview, she did not say why she left her home country. Her attorney told The Republic her migration was "for fear of violence.'
Allan Perez Hernandez, the Guatemalan consul of Tucson, described Mateo's mother as an Indigenous woman from the Huehuetenango region of Guatemala, an area in the country's impoverished Western Highlands from which hundreds have fled.
According to the United Nations Human Rights Council, widespread violence, organized crime, socioeconomic instability and poverty are the primary reasons why people are leaving Guatemala and other nations in the Northern Triangle of Central America.
Whatever drove her to leave, the last days of Mateo's journey were terrible.
'I walked and walked, but everything looked the same. It was like walking in place,' Mateo said. She was frantic. 'I would burst into tears pleading with God to help me find a way or for someone to find me.'
She feared being attacked by coyotes, snakes or any other animals hunting in the moonlight. But the stillness of the desert was what she feared most, Mateo said.
'The silence was horrible. I couldn't hear anything,' she said.
Mateo walked for two days in the desert, hoping to reach a highway to wave down help. On her second day, she reached the border wall in a remote part of southwestern Arizona near Sasabe.
She walked along the fence until she found a gap that allowed her to cross into America.
'I was exhausted. I was thirsty. I was hungry. So I sat down,' she said, and found she could no longer get up. Pains in her stomach began soon after. 'I gave up. This was as far as I was going to make it.'
This is how it ends for me, she told herself.
Instead, Mateo was found by Border Patrol agents near the fence, close to an area referred to as Tres Bellotas Ranch, approximately 74 miles from Tucson.
She was given a bottle of water by Border Patrol, taken to be fingerprinted and processed, then to a detention center, she said.
Giving birth
When she woke up the next day, she began to feel contractions.
Taken to Tucson Medical Center, 'I was told that I was at risk of losing my unborn child,' because of dehydration in the desert, Mateo said.
But Baby Emily was born healthy on the evening on April 30, weighing 6 pounds.
'I know that I risked her life, but she is doing well,' she said, studying the newborn's tiny features.
Erika Mateo holds her newborn, named Emily, as she sits in her Phoenix hotel room on May 3, 2025. She said she never separated herself from her child for fear the baby would be taken away from her.
After giving birth, Mateo remained in the hospital in the custody of U.S. Customs and Border Protection, with agents stationed at her hospital room door. She had given birth to a U.S. citizen child, but the circumstances surrounding her entry into the country made her future uncertain. She faced the risk of swift deportation under the Trump administration's 'expedited removal' policy.
'I was scared that they would take away my baby, so I never separated myself from her,' Mateo said. 'They told me the decision was up to me.'
Legal representation
Shortly after, Luis Campos, a Tucson-based immigration attorney, became aware of Mateo's situation.
"I called the family back in Guatemala. They told me, 'Please help, please represent her," Campos told The Republic on May 2. Mateo agreed to the lawyer's offer to represent her pro bono.
But when he tried to visit her at the hospital, he was turned away.
Federal officers said he needed a signed G-28 form identifying him as the woman's lawyer before he could see her, Campos said.
"I need to see her so she can sign the document. I can't give you a signed G-28 because you're not giving me access to my client," Campos said he told the officer.
Erika Mateo and her lawyer, Luis Campos, a Tucson-based attorney who has practiced immigration law for nearly 30 years, discuss what comes next in Mateo and her newborn's journey. Photo taken on May 3, 2025, in Phoenix.
CBP said in a statement that it had acted appropriately. 'At all times, agents followed the law and adhered to CBP procedures. No entitlements were denied," the statement said.
Without access to Mateo, Campos felt he had no other recourse but to go public, describing what he called a 'denial of the Fifth Amendment constitutional right to speak to a lawyer' and due process.
A community responds
Hundreds showed up May 3 to protest Campos being denied access to Mateo, as well as changes made by the Trump administration to U.S. immigration and asylum policies.
'We have a very active community here. You know, being a border city, we're trying to help people who have been affected by the new strict immigration laws,' said Margaret Smith, a mother of five, who joined the protest. 'We've been noticing community members literally disappearing ever since Trump was in office.'
'These are our community members. They're our neighbors. We don't want to send our friends away. We don't care where they're from,' Smith said about undocumented residents and mixed-status families in her community. 'We would want them to stand up for us, so we're standing up. Tucson is resisting.'
On the nightstand of Erika Mateo's hotel room in Phoenix on May 3, 2025, a balloon with the words "It's a girl!" and a baby bottle were among her few possessions, along with four bags of clothes and baby supplies she had received from Tucson Medical Center.
Campos and Tucson activists caught the attention of elected officials in Arizona and media outlets worldwide.
Tucson Mayor Regina Romero posted a supportive statement on her social media accounts.
'People in the United States, regardless of legal status, have a fundamental right to due process that has been reaffirmed by the Supreme Court as recently as April 7, 2025,' Romero wrote. 'Denying this mother access to legal representation is both inhumane and a violation of her basic rights.'
The mayor called the denial of Mateo's ability to speak with her attorney 'federal overreach.'
'It is unacceptable to treat a medical facility as an extension of xenophobic policies, especially when a newborn's health and safety are at stake,' she wrote, urging compassion and respect for due process.
Governor Katie Hobbs, a Democrat, also weighed in.
'While Gov. Hobbs supports securing the border, she has been clear in her opposition to inhumane immigration enforcement practices,' Hobbs' spokesperson, Liliana Soto, said Friday on X. 'The governor will continue fighting to protect the constitutional rights of every Arizonan and keep our communities safe.'
On May 3, journalists were told that the Governor's Office was 'actively engaging with federal and local officials to gather further information.'
A reprieve
Initial reporting indicated that Mateo was facing expedited removal. She had the option to either bring her newborn with her when she was deported or leave the baby in the U.S., a CBP spokesperson told the Arizona Daily Star.
Campos said, "I believe that the public support for her and the outcry for what was happening might have helped in this case."
In the hotel room in Phoenix, Mateo expressed relief at being out of CBP processing centers and waiting rooms.
'Obviously, it's better than being in the desert,' she giggled, laughing away the helplessness she felt while lost. 'But you know you still feel a depression, an anxiety. It was cold in there.'
Mateo and her baby were discharged from the hospital May 2. She returned to the processing center where she had previously spent the night.
She was awakened about 4 a.m. May 3 for the newborn to be seen by a pediatrician.
Mateo was then handed over to ICE custody.
In a news release May 5, the agency said that after the transfer, 'ICE Phoenix Enforcement and Removal Operations immediately released her under its Alternatives To Detention program while awaiting her appearance before an immigration judge with the Justice Department's Executive Office for Immigration Review.'
Her attorney made the two-hour drive up from Tucson to the Phoenix area and picked up Mateo in the parking lot of a school.
'We met Erika for the first time, and she seemed completely healthy,' the attorney said in the lobby of a Phoenix hotel room a few hours after the pick-up. 'We loaded her items into our car off the IRC van, and we brought her to this hotel. She is exhausted.'
Mateo's only possessions included four bags with clothes and baby supplies given to her at the Tuscon hospital.
She was also given two important legal documents, including the 'Notice to Appear,' which communicates that she would be scheduled for a hearing before an immigration court in Tennessee, where she has a family friend with whom she plans to stay, Campos said.
Although her journey through the American immigration court system is only just beginning, Mateo expressed joy that she and her daughter are now safe in the United States and gratitude to the community that rallied around her.
'There are people that, even without knowing you, still offer their support. I am so grateful to them,' Mateo said. 'I will never be able to pay them for what they've done for me, including my lawyer, but there's a God that will bless them.'
USA TODAY is publishing only a single last name for Mateo. Campos expressed concern about his client's full name being published, citing safety concerns for her well-being and for her family in Guatemala.
Reach the reporter at [e-mail] and follow him on X, formerly Twitter, @raphaeldelag.
This article originally appeared on Arizona Republic: Lost and pregnant at US-Mexico border: Migrant tells her story