“Why Did You Come to the United States?” Central American Children Try to Convince Courts They Need Protection

Summary: In 2014, the Mexican authorValeria Luiselli, waiting for her green card application to be resolved, took her family on a road trip through the American southwest. As she and her husband and young children drove to Roswell, New Mexico, they joked about their own status as “resident aliens” and informed Border Patrol officers at checkpoints that they are “just writers and just on vacation. … We are writing a Western, sir.