Without A Trace: Kidnapped from the Border

As she sat on her couch looking back at me, she wipes the tears from behind her glasses and tries to tell me about the night her youngest daughter of 18 years was suddenly and violently taken, never to be heard from again.

Her trembling hands and shaking legs speak volumes of the pain she suffers day-in and day-out, wondering about the fate of her little girl. “Is she alive? Is she dead? Is she cold and hungry? Have they hurt her? If they did kill her, where is her body?” These thoughts race through the grief stricken mind of this single mother a hundred times a day.

Consuelo (not her real name), a 49 year-old mother of four, can hardly speak her daughters’ name before her face flinches with pain and her eyes fill with tears again. “Today is my baby Paula’s 20th birthday [not her real name either]. It’s been over two years and we’ve heard nothing.” With a breath of exasperation, frustration, and more than a hint of resentment she exclaims, “And no one has helped us. No one.”

As horrific as this sounds, this story has been played out hundreds of times in the last five years all across the U.S./Mexican border. Sometimes it ends with the return of the loved one, in some cases alive but in most cases not. Sometimes, like in Consuelo’s case, it never ends. (more…)