How one Afghan family made the perilous journey across the U.S.-Mexico border

https://www.npr.org/2023/08/09/ [login to see] /how-one-afghan-family-made-the-perilous-journey-across-the-u-s-mexico-border
Shafi Amani holds his three-year-old daughter Yousra outside the Casey Clinic in Alexandria, Va., where they go every couple of weeks for care. She has a tumble of curls and large brown eyes that roll back at times. Her legs are limp, like a rag doll. She can't walk or speak or chew food. The stem of a plastic feeding tube pokes out from her stomach.

Amani carries his daughter into their small apartment just down the street, inside a cluster of red brick buildings. Yousra was a healthy toddler when she and her family fled Afghanistan more than a year ago, taking a dirt road overland to Pakistan. That's where things got worse.

"When we were there, my daughter, her fever goes up," he says, holding Yousra on his lap in their small living room. "And we didn't understand. After some tests the doctor tells us this is a stroke"

Amani got some medicine for Yousra but decided to leave once more, getting a tourist visa for Mexico, moving a step closer to needed medical care.

"I thought Mexico is best place for me," Amani says.