Emily Bregel Arizona Daily Star

Throughout seven months locked in immigration detention, 47-year-old Cielo could only see his wife and son through a glass window that was like a barrier between the living and the dying.

"You can't do anything in there but die slowly," said Cielo, speaking in Spanish in his family's living room, just outside Tucson, five weeks after his release.

The no-contact visits at Florence Correctional Center often intensified the pain of separation, said the long-time landscaper, a native of Sinaloa, Mexico who's lived in Arizona for 30 years.

"You can't touch your wife, you can't touch your son," he said. "If they’re crying, you can’t give them a hug of comfort. It's sad, it's expensive, it's exhausting."

Although he's finally back home, as his family tries to

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