TUCSON – Rashel Olalde was six years old when her family sold everything they owned in their Cottonwood home, packed up what they could in their Ford Explorer and drove almost 1,500 miles south of the U.S.-Mexico border. She didn’t understand why they moved to Mexico or why they were struggling to make ends meet there when they had lived a comfortable life in Arizona.
It would be years before she learned that her dad’s tax preparer blackmailed him, threatening to report him to Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE). Her parents decided to pack their things and bring her and her brother to Mexico, both of whom are U.S. citizens.
Her dad couldn’t find decent-paying construction work like the kind he’d done for years in Arizona and eventually taught himself welding and found a way to provide for his family. Still, her family was hit hard financially…