Nory Doesn’t Go to School Here Anymore

On the last day of June, Nory Sontay Ramos was exchanging texts with her friend Michelle.

The two rising seniors had grown close over the last year and were now on the cross-country team, having emboldened each other to join.

“u going to practice today” Michelle wrote.

“Yes and u?” Nory replied, adding three emojis.

“YESSSS OKAYYY ME TOO”

It was not long ago that Nory would have balked at the idea of going out for a sport.

Soft-spoken and with a bright smile, she was a favorite among teachers, asking about their day, even inquiring about their family. But she was also known for her lack of confidence and timid persona. She had generally navigated school with an unsteady sense of self.

Things changed her junior year. Nory, at 17, started to find her voice.

She delved into her passion for art and wondered if she could go to college for fashion. She put in lengthy hours studying and excelled in Algebra 2. She pushed herself to speak up in class. She made new friends, like Michelle. And she joined the track team.

“I thought, ‘I’m about to be a senior and I have to just open up and enjoy every moment,’” Nory recalled.

By the end of the season, she was one of the top hurdlers on the team and had won numerous events for Miguel Contreras Learning Complex in Los Angeles. She also managed to qualify for the section championships. “Wow, Nory, where have you been hiding?” her coaches would say.

“She really saw her true potential,” Manuel Guevara, a physical education teacher, said. “It just seemed like things were coming together for her.”

Nory imagined the possibilities of her final year as well as the milestone events around the corner — senior sunrise and sunset gatherings, prom, graduation.

But a couple hours after texting with Michelle that morning, Nory sent back a cryptic message. She would not be at practice after all. She had an emergency appointment.

After that, Nory stopped communicating altogether.

Over the next few days, her friends grew uneasy, then frantic. Nory wasn’t even responding through her social media accounts.

“omg noryyy are u okayyy im worried for you!!”

“please tell me you are ok”

“Are u okay norita”

Finally, on July 4, Nory responded:

“Idk if u can see this”

“We didn’t have any chance to fight our case”

“We are in Guatemala”

“They deported us back”

American teenage life

Nory had only one memory of her childhood in Momostenango, Guatemala: Gang members kicked and beat her mother, dragged her by the hair and left her bleeding on the floor.

Even that recollection was fuzzy. Nory was 8 at the time and fainted soon afterward.

The intruders were members of Barrio 18, an infamous gang known for drug trafficking, murder and extortion. They had threatened Nory’s mother, Estela Ramos Baten, for years.

In the spring of 2016, Ms. Ramos Baten, who had separated from her husband, gathered a few clothes and, with Nory, slipped into the night.

After days of traveling by bus, they were detained by agents at the border of Arizona. Released on their own recognizance, they went to live with a relative in Los Angeles.

Nory and her mother were fluent only in K’iche’, a Mayan language. Indigenous people like them tended to have few opportunities in Guatemala, living in impoverished rural areas where education was a luxury. Ms. Ramos Baten had gone to school for about a year. Nory had never been.

Nory enrolled in the third grade while Ms. Ramos Baten found work as a seamstress at a garment factory. They settled in Westlake, an area troubled by drugs, crime, gangs and homelessness. Still it offered them a feeling of relief.

“Here we’ve started a new life and are very happy, free from all the threats and the danger of being attacked or killed,” Ms. Ramos Baten said in her application seeking asylum.

By the time she entered high school, Nory had blended into American teenage life. She binge-watched “Stranger Things,” crushing on its star Finn Wolfhard, and earned a blue belt in taekwondo. She listened to indie rock, shopped at H&M and Hollister and craved matcha lattes with cold foam from Starbucks.

“She was very much the epitome of, like, the latest L.A. girl style,” her cousin Jennifer, 23, said.

Case closed

Los Angeles County is home to more than 950,000 undocumented residents, a population that blends into a background of immigrants. For years the region had generally abided by California’s sanctuary law that limits local authorities when it comes to immigration enforcement.

Last November, two weeks after Donald Trump was elected president, council members unanimously voted to make Los Angeles a sanctuary city. The move cemented a long-held sentiment: There was no interest in targeting those here illegally.

For the undocumented without criminal histories, their legal status felt like a long game that could be played out with good behavior. Their children followed their lead.

When immigration sweeps ramped up earlier this year, Nory, like many teens, was focused on school.

“Every time I’d text her, she’d be like, ‘I’m studying,’” her friend Diana said. “She would get out of track and be doing homework. Her biggest motivation was her mom. She wanted to continue her education and just push forward for her and her mother.”

Nory signed up for summer enrichment classes to get a head start on English. “i’m almost done!” she texted Diana on June 29, a Sunday.

But that weekend carried a sense of foreboding. Ms. Ramos Baten had been told to appear in court the following day. And to bring her daughter. Their lawyer said it was only a legal formality.

Ms. Ramos Baten’s application for asylum had been denied in 2019. The Board of Immigration Appeals upheld her final order of removal in 2021, according to the Department of Homeland Security. After that, “she had no further legal pathways to remain in the U.S.”

Ms. Ramos Baten was unaware of the intricacies of her status and believed she had more options.

She had also been assured that her lawyer was preparing an application for a U visa, which is meant for victims of certain crimes. It was not clear whether the application was ever submitted. Ms. Ramos Baten, who did not have a criminal record, said she continued to appear for her check-in dates. (Her lawyer, Estreya Kapuya, declined to comment about the case to The Times.)

At the courthouse that Monday, Nory and her mother were stunned when an agent told them that their case had lain dormant for three years. It was now closed.

Nory tried to translate what was happening into K’iche’ for her mother, but did not understand it herself. The room swirled. They both cried.

Nory worried about her mother, who had underlying health issues, including high blood pressure and nerve problems.

In addition to the few belongings on them, all of Ms. Ramos Baten’s medications were whisked away.

Devastation in Guatemala

The life that greeted them in Guatemala was stark. Nory and her mother moved into an apartment in an undisclosed village where the threat of gangs still loomed.

The two rarely left their home, traveling only to the grocery store or to church.

Nory mostly stuck to her bedroom, sketching out clothing designs and writing in her diary. She read the “Twilight” series and the Bible on her phone, worried that her English might fade.

There were tearful phone calls through WhatsApp with friends. Michelle wanted to quit cross-country without her.

But the talks were brief because of a weak internet signal and a limit on minutes of use per month. The days inched by.

Nory longed for her cat, Max, in Los Angeles. Her friend Alessandra had given Max as a gift, and he always curled up beside Nory at night.

When her 18th birthday arrived in August, she barely acknowledged the occasion.

Her mother found there was little solace to offer. “She cries and cries and talks about school all the time,” Ms. Ramos Baten said of Nory. “It is my fault. In Guatemala, I don’t see any opportunity for her.”

At the same time, Ms. Ramos Baten was struggling to cope with her blood pressure and nerve pain. The stress of their situation had exacerbated both and left her feeling overwhelmed.

On Sept. 8, Nory’s mother mentioned that she was not feeling well. She was able to obtain some medicine from a pharmacy.

Ms. Ramos Baten seemed to be better when she went to bed that night. But when Nory went to check on her, she discovered her mother would not wake.

‘I have to finish’

Family members in both countries helped organize the funeral. Nory slumped against the casket, resting her head atop it, unable to walk away.

Ms. Ramos Baten was buried with Guatemalan and American flags draped over her coffin.

“I just feel really alone without her,” Nory said in early October, a month after her mother’s death. “We had a bond here.”

A sister moved in temporarily with Nory, bringing along her two young children. It was an unfamiliar relationship. Nory did not know well her older siblings who had remained in Guatemala. Her father had died shortly after she and her mother fled the country.

Nory wonders if her mother’s fate would have been different had she still been under the treatment and medications she received in America. The well-meaning texts from friends inquiring about Ms. Ramos Baten’s death have felt impossible to answer.

There has been a glimmer of hope. Nory was recently allowed to re-enroll in the district’s virtual academy as a temporarily relocated student. She will be able to graduate.

Once again, Nory finds herself focused on school. “I have to finish, just keep going,” she said.

Back in Los Angeles, Nory’s supporters are trying to ease the distance. Among them is her former history and government teacher, Darcy White, who has been on a crusade.

She obtained Nory’s case documents, scanning hundreds of pages, and reached out to a local congressman to see if his office could get involved. She made connections with a nonprofit to help Nory get more reliable internet access. She put together care packages with shoes and clothes, while Nory’s friends added extra comforts like skin-care products and makeup.

“I just lost it when I found out she was gone,” said Ms. White who calls or messages Nory every day. “For me this is like my little kid, and I want to do whatever I can.”

Others have contributed in their own ways. School staff members vetted lawyers and community foundations, and looked into how Nory might continue her education. Her friend Emily helped the family set up the initial GoFundMe. Her cousin Yuri fought back nerves to tell Nory’s story at an immigration rally. “She did a lot for me,” Yuri, 17, said afterward in a shaky voice.

“dont worry you’re coming back for senior year,” Yuri texted.

“Yesss im praying a lot, so I can be there for track and prom,” Nory replied.

There is a shared belief back home that Nory cannot be forgotten. Perhaps the most consistent reminder of this is her name that still appears on the cross-country roster.

“She’s on our team this year,” insisted Christopher Haddy, the team’s coach and the school’s athletics director.

“Every race we do, she’s going to be on our team. And I think that’s the best thing we can do — to say she was supposed to be here.”

Audio produced by Adrienne Hurst.