She waited twenty years to keep one promise. Now she keeps them for other families.

I made my brother a promise when I was a little girl.

I was born and raised in Chihuahua, Mexico. I was small when my brother Gerardo left home to try his luck in the United States.

His leaving put a hole in our house. My mother felt it the most. For years she wondered if she would ever see him again.

I grew up hearing the stories. Weeks of work and no paycheck. Bosses who threatened to call immigration when he asked to be paid. Things done to him that he had no way to fight.

Then our grandparents got old, got sick, and died. Gerardo could not come home to say goodbye. Not seeing them one last time still hurts him today.

I was still a child. But I promised him that one day I would grow up and get him his papers, so he could come home.

Keeping that promise took almost twenty years.

I came to the United States after I married an American. I went through the immigration process myself. I had to learn English. I put myself through school.

Then came the thing I am most proud of. I became my brother's immigration lawyer.

I took him to his appointment at the U.S. Consulate in Ciudad Juárez. I was standing next to him when he heard the one word our family had waited a lifetime to hear.

My mother got her son back. And I was the attorney who kept the promise.