SAN FRANCISCO — The much-publicized saga of Highland Hospital nurse Maria Sanchez and her husband Eusebio, who for the last 15 years had sought to obtain green cards and remain in the U.S. legally, ended with hugs and tears Wednesday night before the undocumented couple boarded a United Airlines flight bound for their native Mexico.

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Healthcare workers rally to halt Oakland nurse’s deportation They had booked their flight Tuesday after receiving word that a final attempt to delay their deportation had been denied by U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement.

The couple is now prohibited from returning to the U.S. for a decade, when they can begin the process all over again, according to federal law.

“Today I am going to leave, as I promised to do,’’ Maria Sanchez calmly told reporters and photographers gathered near a United Airlines check-in counter at San Francisco International Airport after the family arrived around 9:15 p.m. “But it’s hard to leave my kids behind.’

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The couple — who had spent the last week hoping for the best but preparing for the worst — took their 12-year-old American-born son with them to Mexico.

But their three daughters — 16-year-old Elizabeth, 21-year-old Melin and 23-year-old Vianney — will stay in Oakland to care for one another in the home their parents managed to finally buy last year. Vianney is a graduate of UC Santa Cruz, and Melin will graduate from the school next spring.

Not having their parents nearby will be tough, Maria told members of the media Wednesday night. But she said the daughters know that she and Eusebio support them, no matter where they are. Still, she said, the girls won’t have someone to cook for them, or be there when they need a shoulder to cry on.

“But I taught them how to fight,” Maria noted.

At the airport Wednesday night, the 46-year-old mother related how she had arrived in Oakland in 1994 when she was young and in love. She began working in a nursing home, where she was promoted several times, then studied to become a nurse. Eusebio had started working in construction, and later graduated to become a truck driver for the last 12 years.

Asked by a reporter Wednesday night if not getting the stay of the deportation order was a failure, she said no.

“I don’t feel it was a failure — it’s a challenge,’’ said Maria, much like the many others she has faced and overcome during the last 23 years she’s lived in the U.S. “I’m not leaving this country defeated, because I graduated from the university and that was not in my plans when I came here, or when I was a kid,” she said.

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“I feel very satisfied with all the goals I’ve accomplished,” Maria added. Likewise, she wants her daughters to follow their dreams and not let anything get in the way of achieving their goals.

They can look to their hard-working, dogged parents for inspiration.

In a wide-ranging interview with the Bay Area News Group on Tuesday night, after losing her bid to delay deportation, Maria said she is studying all her alternatives, and immigrating to Canada is one of them.

Not only does Canada “need good nurses,” Maria said, but she and her husband must find jobs that pay enough to help support their daughters. The couple has saved some money to help cover those costs for a time, she said, but it will not last forever.

“My kids have to eat somehow,’’ said 46-year-old registered nurse.

The heartbreaking news that she and her husband would have to leave the country was delivered by U.S. Sen. Dianne Feinstein, who had intervened on the family’s behalf, and called Maria late Tuesday afternoon.

“She said that if they (immigration authorities) make an exception for me, they will be sending the wrong message to others in the (immigrant) community by telling them that this is OK,’’ Maria said. “She said that she was really sorry, and that she tried, but she couldn’t do much. But she wanted me to know that she was going to make sure the girls will be okay.’’

Feinstein last week called on the federal government to reverse the impending deportation, which she called “the cruel and arbitrary nature of President Trump’s immigration enforcement policies.” She said she still intends to introduce a “private bill” in the Senate on Sept. 5 on behalf of the Sanchez family, which seeks to overturn the deportation.

But Carl Shusterman, the Sanchezes’ attorney, said that bill must pass not only the U.S. Senate, but the U.S. House of Representatives, both of which are dominated by Republicans. And even if it did move forward, it would have be signed by Trump, whose election was fueled in part by his promise to crack down on illegal immigration.

The Los Angeles-based Shusterman, who had filed a request for a stay of the deportation order for the couple on Friday, remained dismayed by the deportation decision.

“As an ex-prosecutor, I totally believe in following the law,” he said Wednesday. “But the agency is given discretion to look at the individual circumstances and grant a stay. I’m disappointed they didn’t do that in this case.”

The lawyer said he has answered Maria’s questions about her idea of trying to work and live temporarily in Canada, which he said comes with its own hurdles. But he said he will help in any way he can.

ICE spokeswoman Virginia Kice on Tuesday night again said that the couple’s case had undergone exhaustive review at multiple levels of the Department of Justice’s immigration court system.

After landing in Mexico City, the couple will head back to their hometown of Santa Monica, in the state of Hidalgo, to map out their future. While they will be happy to re-unite with their relatives there, she said the town is too small to employ the registered nurse and her truck driver husband. So they will have to make a living somewhere else.

Maria isn’t giving up.

“Something good is going to happen,’’ she said. “You know what we always say: When a door closes, a window opens. One day there will be another president who will not be Trump. And that person will consider the whole situation.’’

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A GoFundMe account created to assist nurse Maria Sanchez and her family is at www.gofundme.com/supportmariarn .

Bay Area News Group staff photographer Ray Chavez contributed to this report.