US: Short, shy and a little dumpy, Maria (not her real name) arrived in Washington DC from her native El Salvador nine months ago with just $500. Her husband had been in the US capital for five years, sending home as much as he could afford, but it was not enough to sustain Maria and her sons, aged seven and nine.
So at 30, Maria crossed through Guatemala into southern Mexico, leaving her sons behind with relations and worked for four months to pay for an illegal passage into the US. Last summer, she crossed the Rio Grande into Texas and made her way to Washington to join her husband as a casual worker.
"I've had casual work as a painter and decorator and a cleaner and it's mostly been working for Americans. I stand on the street corner with my husband and others and people come by and say, today I need five painters or four cleaners or whatever.
"Normally we're paid by the hour. I'd normally hope to get $15 an hour, but people try to pay $10 an hour."
Maria can earn as much in Washington on a good day as she would make in a month in El Salvador and she sends between $200 and $400 to her family each month. As an illegal immigrant, she has no employment rights and cannot take out health insurance.
"There is a constant feeling of insecurity and the lack of medical cover is a worry. Happily, neither my husband nor I have had serious medical problems, but I don't have the money to pay for a doctor if I do become seriously ill at any stage."
She speaks no English and feels homesick every day, unable to go home to visit her sons without having to go through the whole, illegal journey into the US again. Each time she talks to her children, they ask when she is coming home and if they can join her in the US, but she is unwilling to risk smuggling them into the country illegally.
"For a mother, being with your children, getting them up in the morning, preparing their meals, sending them out to school are all the normal things and I miss them terribly. It's very hard to be so far from the children. On the other hand, being with the children and being unable to provide them with the essentials of life would be worse in some ways. Working in the US, I can make sure they can get what they need in El Salvador," she said.
Maria originally tried to come to the US legally but when she applied for a visa at the US consulate, they asked for proof that she was economically comfortable in El Salvador. "They wanted documents such as titles to property, bank statements and salary records. Obviously, if I had the things they were looking for, I wouldn't have had to come here," she said.
Yesterday afternoon, Maria was preparing to join tens of thousands of other illegal immigrants and their supporters in a demonstration on Washington's National Mall.
She hoped the protest would show Americans the human face of illegal immigration and change some attitudes to a debate that is dividing the country.
"I hope one thing this march will achieve is perhaps to open the hearts of some of the people who take a very hard line on immigration and ideally our hope would be for an amnesty for immigrants."