By NOMAAN MERCHANT
Associated Press

MCALLEN, Texas (AP) - President Donald Trump's push for a $5.7 billion wall - a demand that has triggered the longest government shutdown in history - is unlikely on its own to stop many of the thousands of families crossing the U.S.-Mexico border each month.

One of those families is Maria Orbelina Cortez and her three sons. Cortez told The Associated Press in a recent interview that she fled El Salvador for the U.S. after her husband attacked her and knocked a pan of scalding oil onto her youngest son's head.

After quietly planning for months, she took the 3-year-old boy and his two brothers and headed north without telling her husband.

The Trump administration wants to construct more than 200 miles (320 kilometers) of border wall. Most of those miles would likely go in South Texas, where more people cross illegally than anywhere else.

Congress already funded 33 miles (53 kilometers) of construction in South Texas' Rio Grande Valley.

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