It’s been 24 years since a woman now residing in San Francisco last saw her eldest children in Guatemala.

“I’ve given everything trying to find a way to visit my children there,” said the woman, who works cleaning houses. She now has a young son here in California, and because she is undocumented, she risks being unable to reenter the U.S. if she ever travels back to Guatemala. (KQED is not using the woman’s name because she fears being detained or deported if publicly identified due to her immigration status.)

“All this time here, I’ve never found a way to figure out my situation,” she said. “When you’re trying to see the people you love once more, you’re willing to do anything.”

And unfortunately, her desperation made her a target for fraud, she said.

‘Fear and uncertainty’

While

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