Maria fled the violent drug gangs of Michoacan with just three changes of clothes, and traveled 2,500 kilometers (1,500 miles) to the edge of Mexico where she now waits to claim political asylum in the United States.
The 38-year-old is part of a record wave of Central and Southern Americans trying to escape violence and poverty at home and make a new life in the world's richest country over the last year, even as its borders have been shut because of the COVID-19 pandemic.
