El Paso Woman Takes In Immigrant Boy

Nelson Alvarez, 13, right, who came to the United States from Honduras by himself, has found a home with Irma Esparza, who is trying to get him a juvenile visa. He and Irma's son, Alex, 13, play a game they made up.

by Louie Gilot
in the El Paso Times - October 18, 2004

When Nelson Alvarez met Irma Esparza, it was love at first sight.

"I like her very much. I'd like to have a mom like her. She hugs me a lot, and I hug her, too," Nelson, 13, said.

Nelson came from Honduras this year, by bus and by train, looking for family members in the United States. He was caught by U.S. immigration authorities and spent four months at the immigration detention center in El Paso.

Esparza is a 50-year-old nurse who lives in the Lower Valley with her adopted son, Alex Esparza, also 13. She took Nelson in.

Esparza is one of a few dozen local families who have volunteered to take in immigrant children throughout the years. Currently, four El Paso area families sponsor children -- two boys and two girls, Nelson being the youngest. The sponsors house and feed the children and make sure they go to school and appear at immigration hearings.

Sponsors aren't paid for their efforts.

Nelson Alvarez, right, has found a home with Irma Esparza, center, who is trying to get him a juvenile visa, while he lives with her and her daughter, Angelica Esparza, left, and other family members.

Esparza said she decided to help after she found out that more than 100 Central and South American children are detained in El Paso for having sneaked into the United States, often by themselves, without the proper papers.

She remembered the day she met Nelson at the detention center, in a room with two chairs. He was shy and eager.

"I felt great tenderness for him," she said. "We talked about his country and about my son. When I got home, I went on the Internet, looking for Web sites about Honduras."

Nationwide, the Department of Health and Human Services places more than half of the 5,750 children in immigration custody with sponsors, most of whom are relatives of the children. But in cases such as Nelson's, in which the children seek a special immigrant juvenile visa for abused, neglected or abandoned children, the sponsors are often strangers.

Las Americas, an El Paso advocacy group that provides free legal representation to immigrant children, is helping Nelson with his case.

These days, Nelson attends sixth grade at Rio Bravo Middle School. He plays "baseketball," an invented game of basketball with a softball, with Alex. And he works on his English.

Each day, he and Esparza read 45 pages from books in English.

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