CHARLOTTESVILLE, Va. (AP) — Devotional candles to St. Jude, the Holy Trinity and the Virgin of Guadalupe sit on a bookshelf by the door of a classroom in a United Methodist church. A sewing machine is a few feet away between a bed and a set of wicker furniture. In a corner, an electric skillet warming chicken thighs acts as a kitchen.

It is from these makeshift quarters that Maria Chavalan-Sut, an indigenous woman from Guatemala, has spent 10 months staving off a deportation order to a country that she says has scarred her life with violence, trauma and discrimination. Her fight for asylum cou...