GANGS OR DETENTION?
Central American migrants face difficult predicament at US border
After Willians Bonilla fled threats from a street gang in Honduras two years ago to seek asylum in the US, he spent seven months in detention only to be deported back to his native land in Central America and only to face his attackers anew.
So Bonilla, a 26-year-old car painter, promptly headed back to the US border, now with his wife and 2-year-old son. They crossed Guatemala to southern Mexico and then, in a ragtag caravan relentlessly criticized by US President Donald Trump, trekked 3,218 kilometers north to border city Tijuana.
Mostly from Honduras, El Salvador and Guatemala, caravan migrants like Bonilla face a predicament. Escaping gang violence, political turmoil and economic dysfunction, they seek refuge in the US, but with little certainty of a welcome, especially in the age of Trump.
Chances of being granted asylum are slim. Many could face long detentions and separation from families while awaiting court hearings that could end with deportation orders.
Bonilla had actually lost his desire to fight for asylum, unwilling to again endure the hardships of US detention and the tortuous wait for a trial before an immigration judge, only to be rejected and flown back to the lethal quagmire he had fled twice.
However, the family decided that his wife and child would instead apply for asylum, figuring they stood a better chance because of their vulnerability and the fact that they have relatives already in the US. Sharp and witty, with a dream of studying art that turned into a career of custom-painting cars, Bonilla said he struggled with his decision.
“She knows hardship,” said Bonilla, almost proudly, of his wife, who had lived in a restive part of Honduras, but even that might not blunt the shock when his family arrives in the US. “They have no idea what they’re in for.”
Bonilla’s gaze darkened as he recalled incarceration first in a Texas government-run facility, which he remembered as “okay,” and then in the private Stewart Detention Center in Lumpkin, Georgia, which he called “a cesspool.”
Hard-line stance
Trump has made his hardline stance on immigration an integral part of his presidency and has advocated a wall along the US-Mexican border to stem the flow of migrants.
Nevertheless, about 5,000 Hondurans, Guatemalans and Salvadorans were given interviews each month in 2017, the first step in claiming asylum, according to the most recent US data.
At least 140 migrants of the caravan plan to apply for asylum. US authorities have allowed in a few at a time since Monday, mostly women and children, through the San Ysidro port of entry into California, with much of the group camping near the crossing still waiting for entry.
When Bonilla made his 2016 asylum attempt, US border officials asked him if he was frightened to return home, a mandatory question for undocumented arrivals at US ports of entry during the first few days of detention. He answered “yes.”
That “yes” triggered the asylum process, which entails an interview to assess an applicant’s “credible fear” and a court date for a ruling on asylum or deportation weeks, months or even years later.
Bonilla was transferred to Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) custody, first in Texas and then in the Georgia detention center owned by CoreCivic Inc.
“Ay! Ay!” he said, as he recalled the Georgia facility. He called the food there barely edible. The guards, he said, were racist and tore up letters that detainees wrote, including one he had hoped to send to a state official regarding his case.
Responding to complaints at the facility, the Department of Homeland Security issued a report last year that backed up Bonilla’s account. It detailed questionable use of solitary confinement, delayed healthcare, broken and dirty bathrooms and moldy food.
“The issues identified by the December report were quickly and effectively remedied,” said CoreCivic spokesman Steve Owen, adding that much of the facility’s leadership team eats the same meals as the detainees and that he was unaware of complaints of racism or instances of staff not delivering mail.
“US Immigration and Customs Enforcement is committed to ensuring that those in our custody reside in safe, secure and humane environments and under appropriate conditions of confinement,” ICE spokeswoman Jennifer Elzea said.
In the end, a judge rejected Bonilla’s asylum claim and he was sent home, where he said the gang closed in again, this time attacking his wife.
Carrying photos to document the beatings she sustained, Bonilla’s wife and child may spend less time in custody thanks to rules limiting the duration that women and children can be held as well as a shortage of beds in detention centers.
Cristobal’s journey
Another member of the caravan, Bonilla’s fellow Honduran Jose Cristobal said he also chose to remain in Mexico while his common law partner Yolanda Hieron Meras and his 15-yearold son seek asylum.
Cristobal, a 48-year-old welder, said the family left home under the cover of darkness shortly after his son received two death threats from a gang, one in person, the second handwritten.
“They don’t give you more than two chances,” Cristobal said.
He pinched his nose hard to hold back the tears as he watched his partner and son disappear through the San Ysidro gate on Tuesday to make an asylum claim. Cristobal said he would try to join them sometime later in the US legally, but acknowledged the chances were low.
The journey from Honduras was arduous. The family was robbed within minutes of arriving in Mexico through Guatemala, he said, losing their only valuable possessions: two telephones and all their cash.
Unwilling to seek police help for fear of deportation, Cristobal found work as a handyman until he struck his thumb with a hammer and the injury became infected.
The family stumbled upon the caravan in the southern Mexican city of Tapachula, Cristobal said. From there, on March 25, it began its monthlong odyssey northward. They saw it as a way to reach the US border safely, with sporadic offerings of transportation, food and shelter.
The caravan, which peaked at nearly 1,500 people in early April, had dwindled to a few hundred by the time it reached Tijuna, a vast logistical feat that had meant relying on loaned buses and walking for hours.
For one long leg of the journey, Cristobal’s family had to leap aboard a freight train, dubbed “El Tren de La Muerte,” or “The Train of Death,” because of the injuries suffered as migrants race to catch it, climb to the roof and grip on for dear life as it rolls and pitches.
Making it to Tijuana seemed to them a nearmiracle.