Last week, 22-year-old Denise Gomez and her mother waded into the Rio Grande River, straddling the border between El Paso, Texas, and Juarez, Mexico. Their feet were wrapped in trash bags as they crossed through the cold, shallow water to embrace one another. Gomez’s mother was deported to Mexico ten years ago and Gomez—an undocumented immigrant still living in the United States—has not seen her since. “We didn’t say much,” Gomez told me.