The same year Juliana and her sisters fled El Salvador, some 40,000 unaccompanied children arrived at the border, along with 40,000 families. In 2016, there were 60,000 children and 78,000 families. Deportations generated a separate wave of people, flowing in the opposite direction. In 2015 and 2016, the US deported roughly 42,000 Salvadorans, 42,000 Hondurans, and 67,000 Guatemalans. With this many people in a state of perpetual flux—pushed toward the border, then pushed back again—the dividing line between the US and Central America only grew blurrier.
