Alone, scared and in a strange country

(CNN)Deisi Arreces-Huitz sat quietly in a tiny bus station in South Texas, holding a stack of tickets. Her bus wouldn't come for hours, and she was alone and frightened.

Deisi didn't speak English. She had no money, no cellphone and not even a watch to check how much longer she'd have to wait. Her only possessions were the few clothes inside her black duffel bag and a manila envelope with documents.

It was her 18th birthday.

A white van had dropped her and two other Central American teens at the Harlingen, Texas, bus station that day after she was released from a shelter for migrant children near the US-Mexico border.

A few months earlier, Deisi and her wheelchair-bound father had arrived in Texas after making a long journey north from their native Guatemala. The two were separated at the border, and Deisi joined the thousands of other immigrant children who have been taken from their parents after entering the US and thrust into adulthood without safety nets.

After that her father was released from detention and went north to suburban Chicago, where he has relatives.

Now she was on her way to join him.

Deisi boarded a bus in Texas on her 18th birthday, hoping to reunite with her father in Chicago.

Wearing a blue T-shirt and a pink hoodie she was given at the shelter, Deisi sat in the mostly empty station with nothing to do but watch the '90s music videos that flashed on a small TV atop a nearby vending machine.

Four hours later, she boarded a bus -- the first of four she would need to ride on this journey. Surrounded by strangers, Deisi feared she wouldn't be able to reach Chicago to find her father.

She was on her own in a strange country, and she had no clue what would happen next.

She wants to help her dad walk again

Before she left her hometown of El Jicaro, Guatemala, Deisi was living with her grandparents, finishing her junior year of high school and planning to spend the summer watching movies with her 14-year-old sister. She daydreamed about becoming a doctor.

She wasn't sure about the idea of traveling to the United States and waited until the last minute to tell her mom, who lives elsewhere with her other siblings.

But she knew her dad, whose legs had been broken in a car accident, could get better medical care in the US, and he couldn't travel by himself.

For four years Deisi had watched her father, Artemio Arreces Florian, struggling to fully heal. He underwent a series of surgeries in Guatemala but did not regain much mobility, and his pain would not go away.

While her father mostly uses a wheelchair to move around, one of his legs is strong enough that he's able to use a walker to travel a few feet. But he has a heavy limp, and his face reflects the strain on his body.

"I know we all came looking for a better future," Deisi told CNN. "Personally, I left Guatemala because I want to help my dad walk again."

Deisi and her father, Artemio Arreces Florian.

In May, the father and daughter left Guatemala and crossed into Mexico with a couple of backpacks, a walker and a wheelchair.

They rode regional buses and traveled in Ubers. Sometimes Deisi had to walk for miles, pushing her dad's wheelchair and carrying his walker. They slept in warehouses and ate beans and rice as they made the trip north.

On June 2, they crossed the Rio Grande on inflatable boats and were detained by Border Patrol agents within hours after entering South Texas.

They were brought to a chilly holding area known as a "hielera," or "cooler," where Deisi was separated from her father and taken to a facility for migrant minors.

Father and daughter were only allowed to wave goodbye to each other through a glass window. Deisi feared her dad could be deported, leaving her alone in the US.

"I felt very bad, and I started to cry -- because we were together for the whole journey," she told CNN.