Rossanna, his 25-year-old partner, was buried in San Juan La Laguna, near her family.

In the Guatemalan highlands, US election campaigning about immigration and the salvos about who was doing what to secure the border were far away. For the people here, the story is simply that of two of their young who left to earn some money but came back in boxes in the back of a van.

"She wanted to be a chef but we didn't have the money for her to study," said Francisca, Rossanna's mother.

"That's why she wanted to go to the USA. She was going to work in a restaurant. I didn't want her to leave but she insisted that five years would give her and Alex the opportunity to raise money to build their own house and open a restaurant here."