Long border Elizabeth Olivas' journey came to an end Friday morning tired.
The honor student, a 3.9 grade-point average and is a star football player and track team member who was caught in a spider immigration, got off an airplane at Indianapolis International Airport just after midnight, visa in hand. She hugged her father and prepared for its next milestone: delivering the salutatorian graduation speech at Frankfort High School Saturday.
The honor student, a 3.9 grade-point average and is a star football player and track team member who was caught in a spider immigration, got off an airplane at Indianapolis International Airport just after midnight, visa in hand. She hugged her father and prepared for its next milestone: delivering the salutatorian graduation speech at Frankfort High School Saturday.
"I'm prepared," she said. "I want it's like I never left."
But she was gone - for seven frustrating weeks in Ciudad Juarez, Mexico, in an attempt to get a visa as her classmates rehearsed and prepared for the biggest day of their lives to secure.
The U.S. consulate told her April 17 they could not apply for a visa for three years because she was late by one day when she was getting an an adult.
Olivas came to Indiana at the age of 4 Chihuahua, Mexico, and was obliged by law to Mexico to get a visa within six months after her 18th birthday.
"I never get angry as much as I was frustrated," she said at the airport, where the limits to 20 city residents greeted her with signs reading "Welcome home Betty" and balloons. She wore a gray T-shirt with the word "Love" printed in pink, blue jeans and slip-on shoes. When the group ran and hugged her friends that she knew a big smile, but her eyes drooped as someone who had been awake for a long time.
"These people are the people I know and lived with my whole life," she said. "I've never been back to Mexico since I came here 14 years ago. This is the only life I knew."
Olivas stayed with her grandparents and tried not to obsess about her predicament.
"I went to the museum, the cinema, saw some sights," she said.
But her uncle Felipe Serna, 46, said there was deep anxiety and pain - for Olivas and her parents. "It was stressful for everyone," he said. "Sometimes they cried. They were so sad."
Olivas lawyer, Sarah Moshe, was able to get an accelerated remission for Olvas on Thursday. Olivas participated in a seven-hour meeting at the Consulate in Juarez and was issued the travel document. She was American Airlines Flight 1760 within hours.
Olivas fate attracted the attention of the legislators in Indiana and the country. U.S. Senator Richard Lugar's office brokered the waiver hearing and Indiana congressman Mike Pence and Todd Rokita sent letters to the consulate on behalf of Olivas' on Thursday.
