// Trusted Wholesale and Retail Partner

Elsa Ortiz Online, LLC started its business in 2019 with the mission to provide hope and opportunity to Elsa Ortiz and her family in Guatemala. In 2018, Elsa tried to immigrate to the U.S. with her 8-year-old son Antony. They crossed the border in Texas and were arrested by Border Patrol. A few days later, immigration agents entered their cell and told Elsa to get Tony’s shoes. When she turned around with the shoes Tony was gone. Elsa was then deported to Guatemala, handcuffed and with shackles on her legs, not knowing if she would ever see him again. We read this story in the New York Times just four days before we were to meet our son in Guatemala for a first-time vacation in Guatemala. Within 24 hours we found a lawyer who took the case pro-bono. Using social media, we found a translator and were able to locate Elsa in Guatemala. We brought her legal papers to sign and 81 days later the lawyer returned her son to her at the Guatemala airport. During that time we got to know Elsa and became aware that she had no hope and no opportunity to better her life. We started our wholesale/retail business in Albuquerque, NM to create a job for her in Guatemala as our buyer. Elsa would buy handmade Mayan products and we would sell them in the U.S. We named our company after Elsa. Four years later Elsa and Tony, and others who had children taken from them at the border, were granted humanitarian visas by the U.S. government. Elsa and Tony are now living, working, and studying happily in Virginia. Elsa Ortiz Online, LLC continues to support a second buyer and to grow our business to expand its capacity to spread hope and opportunity to others in Guatemala.