Currents News Staff
These are the regulars at the Blue Line Hockey Bar in Kansas City, Mo. Customers know Letty Stegall well. She got home in time for Valentine’s Day and her husband’s birthday.
“Just to have her back for these occasions, just going to the grocery store, anything–we’re best friends,” Steven said. “We love each other.”
Letty and her husband Steve take nothing for granted. In 2018, Letty was deported for a DUI charge nearly a decade earlier. She had lived in the U.S. for more than 20 years and had a legal work permit.
“It’s been hellish. It’s been a nightmare,” Steve said. “We’ve been running through hoops. We’ve been delayed.”
As the bar’s general manager, Letty worked remote for four years.
“This bar. I can feel the bar’s energy,” Steve said. “When she walked in, the bar is even just happy to have her back.”
A taxi driver drove her and her dog back into the U.S. She calls him an angel.
“I’m a believer in God and I know things happen for a reason,” Letty said. “He has given me the chance.”
Friends and loved ones celebrated her return. The family even drove 14 hours straight home.
“The signs when we saw Kansas City getting closer and closer,” Steve said, “it gave us more juice just to keep going.”
“The American dream is the moment when I cross the border with that visa, the freedom to go back and forth,” Leyy said. “That is the American Dream.”
Letty missed her daughter’s high school graduation and many other momentous occasions, but despite all that, she says she is focused on the future and her family.