NEW ELLIS ISLAND
City where refugees gather Volunteers do best to help
countries. Each applies for asylum and if accepted they are held in a detention centre until a sponsor is found.
If the application is successful, the sponsor pays a bond and they are dropped in Guantanamo Bay-type clothing at the local bus station.
We meet Jacquelinne Jennifer Puentes Aguilar, who says she would have been killed if she has stayed in El Congo in Santa Ana, El Salvador.
Married for 15 years, raising her three children and her late sister’s son, the 38-year-old and her husband built up a small business selling clothes. But when gangster thugs learned of their modest success they demanded not only her earnings, but also her husband too. S he says: “My husband had to join the gang to save us from being slaughtered. But they still wanted money. When I told them I couldn’t pay they threatened to kill my children and me.
“I couldn’t stay. I left my children with my parents and fled.
“My husband is now in prison. I know I will never see him again.”
Jacquelinne got to Mexico by foot and by bus. Once she made it into the country, she landed a job on a ranch but was held against her will before managing to escape.
Now, seven months after leaving her homeland, she is waiting to be processed into America’s asylum system, which could take 18 months.
Lamin Jallow, 28, fled Brikama, The Gambia, after it emerged he had been secretly having an eight-year gay relationship and his boyfriend was killed.
“Homosexuality is illegal in my country,” he says. “The punishment by the courts I could handle. The justice administered by the local community I could not. I would be lynched like my boyfriend was before being killed. My father wanted me dead.”
Lamin travelled through Senegal and managed to reach Ecuador, where he was granted a visa. After that expired, he set off north.
It took him a year and a half to walk to the US border, sleeping by day and travelling by night for safety.
He is also waiting patiently at the border in Brownsville for his name to be called.
Selfless Mike says he is hoping to take early retirement this year to dedicate himself full-time to the migrants.
He says of those he has helped: “Despite what Trump would have the world believe, not one was near a bad person. It’s a lie. They are not rapists or killers or gang members.
“These people are young people who are running away from all that. They are pressured to join the gangs, and if they refuse their families are threatened or killed.
“They merely want to live a life without violence and crime.
“History will judge America for its treatment of migrants under Trump.”