Sextuplets

The Ireta sextuplets climb through the backyard fence of their home. Grandmother Ernestina Castillo watches over them.   (Don Bartletti / Los Angeles Times)

In her house near Irapuato, Mexico, 8-year-old Teresa Irata holds baby pictures of herself and her siblings when they were toddlers in San Diego.   (Don Bartletti / Los Angeles Times)

Grandmother Ernestina Castillo prepares supper for the sextuplets in the cramped kitchen of their one-room house near Irapuato, Mexico.   (Don Bartletti / Los Angeles Times)

The 8-year-old Ireta sextuplets -- Noe, Carlos, Omar, Maria, Teresa, and Marcos -- in their home near Irapuato, Mexico. They were born in San Diego to undocumented Mexican parents Benigno and Gabriela Ireta.   (Don Bartletti / Los Angeles Times)

Grandmother Ernestina Castillo gathers laundry behind the sextuplets’ house near Irapuato, Mexico. The sextuplets, who were born in San Diego, moved with their mother to Mexico three years ago.   (Don Bartletti / Los Angeles Times)

The Ireta sextuplets play in the windows of their future bedrooms near Irapuato, Mexico -- left to right, Teresa, and Maria, Carlos and Omar, Noe and Marcos. Father Benigno Ireta works in San Diego as a painter and sends money home to fund construction of their new house.   (Don Bartletti / Los Angeles Times)

At home near Irapuato, Mexico, Gabriela, recovering from a broken leg, talks with sons Carlos, right and Noe. Omar is on the right.   (Don Bartletti / Los Angeles Times)

Marcos Ireta admires the tiny green leaf hammock he crafted with rusty cans and rocks outside his house near Irapuato, Mexico. With little money available for ready-made toys, he and his five siblings make do with imaginary games and toys.   (Don Bartletti / Los Angeles Times)

Carlos Ireta uses a garden hose as a jump rope as Noe and Teresa play in the unfinished living room of their future house near Irapuato, Mexico.   (Don Bartletti / Los Angeles Times)

Maria Ireta stares at a snapshot of her father Benigno and herself when she was a baby in San Diego. With the family separated by the border for the last three years, old photos and phone calls are important emotional links for the children.   (Don Bartletti / Los Angeles Times)

Seated in his van after a typical 12-hour workday, Benigno Ireta, 41, looks through snapshots of his family taken when they lived together in northern San Diego County.   (Don Bartletti / Los Angeles Times)

Benigno Ireta wraps up a day of painting in Encinitas, Calif. After a long legal battle with immigration authorities, he has permission to work in the U.S. but for now at least has given up his chance to get a green card. His earnings are the only source of income for his wife and their sextuplets, who live in the Mexican state of Guanajuato.  (Don Bartletti / Los Angeles Times)

Benigno Ireta works at a house overlooking the Pacific Ocean in Encinitas, Calif. A portion of his earnings are financing the construction of a house for his family in Mexico.  (Don Bartletti / Los Angeles Times)

Spread across the bed in his rented room in Encinitas, Calif., are gifts Benigno Ireta intends to mail to his sextuplets in Mexico.   (Don Bartletti / Los Angeles Times)

Benigno Ireta gets teary-eyed looking at photographs of his sextuplets.  (Don Bartletti / Los Angeles Times)

A wrinkled note from 8-year-old daughter Maria to her father depicts the Ireta sextuplets holding hands with their parents. The letter in part reads, “Daddy - I love you very much. Come visit us and please bring a guitar and ballerina clothes for my doll.”   (Don Bartletti / Los Angeles Times)