SAN ANTONIO SECORTEZ, Guatemala — Claudia Maquin said goodbye to her 7-year-old daughter a few weeks ago, when the girl and her father left their small village with the dream of making a new life in the United States.

Now she is waiting to say goodbye to her again.

Ms. Maquin’s husband and daughter, Jakelin, did make it across the border — but just over a day later, on Dec. 8, the girl died in the custody of the United States Border Patrol.

For Ms. Maquin, 27, there is nothing to do now but wait for her child’s body to come home as she burrows into the protective embrace of her extended family in a village of thatched-roof homes in the rolling hills of the Guatemalan lowlands.

Ms. Maquin has a simple explanation for why her husband joined a growing number of villagers and made the dangerous journey north: the absolute lack of alternatives in this lush but remote part of the country. Indigenous communities like theirs have endured centuries of poverty, exclusion and repression by economic and political elites.