Asylum Stories for Prayer Vigils

This document contains stories about asylum-seekers in three categories:

Subjected to Remain in Mexico/Migrant Protection Protocols

Subjected to Family Separation

Asylum-Seekers from Other Continents

Subjected to Remain in Mexico/Migrant Protection Protocols

Hundreds of Violent Assaults, Even Murders

At least 816 asylum-seekers (including 201 children) have been raped, kidnapped, assaulted, and even murdered while subject to Remain in Mexico/MPP. Read about these attacks and remember these individuals’ stories. (“A Year of Horrors,” Human Rights First, January 2020)

Anonymous (El Salvador)

“A father who was murdered in Tijuana, Mexico after being forced to wait there with his wife and two children while their asylum cases were processed in the U.S. had warned immigration officers that his family did not feel safe in the border town, according to a lawyer representing his family.” (“FATHER KILLED IN MEXICO WHILE WAITING FOR ASYLUM UNDER TRUMP POLICY HAD WARNED DHS HIS FAMILY DID NOT FEEL SAFE: LAWYER,” Newsweek, December 12, 2019)

Breni (Honduras)

Breni “was bathing with four other girls in the river that divides the Mexican city of Matamoros and the US city of Brownsville last week when her 14-year-old friend was sucked in by the current… She grabbed onto her friend and was also pulled into the river. Witnesses along the river bank, who had immigrated from Cuba, scrambled to rescue the drowning girls, but were unable to reach Breni until it was nearly too late.” (“A Teen Girl Forced To Wait In Mexico Under Trump’s Asylum Policies Nearly Drowned While Waiting To Cross,” Buzzfeed, September 16, 2019).

David and his child (unknown country of origin)

“David wept as U.S. immigration agents marched him and his child across the bridge into Mexico. ‘They say here in this country, where we are, they kidnap a lot of people,’ he said. They didn’t even last the night. Hours later and just three miles away, cartel members surrounded David and a dozen other migrants at a bus station. They were forced into trucks, and abducted. (“Trump’s Asylum Policies Sent Him Back to Mexico. He Was Kidnapped Five Hours Later By a Cartel,” Vice News, September 16, 2019). 

Franklin (country unknown), Katy (El Salvador), and Marlon (Guatemala)

“The MPP, rather than protect migrants, puts them in grave danger. It mandates that they remain in crime-ridden Mexican border cities for months, even years, waiting for U.S. courts to decide their asylum claims. Every few weeks, refugees enrolled in the MPP are brought into U.S. border cities such as El Paso to see an immigration judge. But after their hearings, they are sent back to Mexico, to cities so violent that the U.S. State Department recommends that Americans limit travel to them, or avoid travel entirely.” (“TRUMP’S “REMAIN IN MEXICO” POLICY EXPOSES MIGRANTS TO RAPE, KIDNAPPING, AND MURDER IN DANGEROUS BORDER CITIES,” The Intercept, July 14, 2019)

Subjected to Family Separation

Byron and David (Guatemala)

“As his long-lost son walked toward him in an airport terminal, a sobbing David Xol stretched out his arms, fell to one knee and embraced the boy for about three minutes, crying into his shoulder. He had not held the child since May 2018, when border agents pulled then-7-year-old Byron away inside a detention facility. They were separated under President Donald Trump’s zero-tolerance policy—the father deported to Guatemala, the son placed in a series of government facilities before ending up with a host family in Texas.” (“9 parents separated from families return to children in US,” AP, January 23, 2020)

The Arredondo Family (Guatemala)

Esvin Fernando Arredondo … was separated from one of his daughters, Andrea Arredondo — then 12 years old and now 13, after they turned themselves in on May 16, 2018, at a Texas crossing and sought asylum legally, according to his lawyer. Sabraw found that Arredondo had been deported after his order to the U.S. government not to remove any more parents separated from his children. [His wife and their two daughters] passed the initial screening interview for asylum, unlike [Esvin], even though they were fleeing for the same reason. Their son Marco, 17, was shot and killed by suspected gang members in Guatemala City.” (“9 parents separated from families return to children in US,” AP, January 23, 2020)

Carlos and Carlitos (Honduras)

“Carlos Roberto Rodriguez, 34, and his son Carlitos Alberto Rodriguez, 3, are from Progreso Yoro, Honduras. Carlos is a single parent, and desires to give his kids a better future by working in the United States. ‘There are no opportunities, apart from crime,’ he said about Honduras, where crime is rampant and economic opportunity is low. ‘That’s why we decided to come.’ Having been a victim of crime in the past, this was a major reason for leaving.” (“Faces of Immigration: Day 28,” Catholic Charities of Southern New Mexico, April 2, 2019)

Mayra (Honduras)

Traffickers had trapped Mayra, a Honduran woman, and her three children in a southern Mexican house alongside a crowd of other migrants. The traffickers had stolen her money and her phone. Her wide-eyed six-year old son was slurring his speech. Her two-year-old daughter was throwing tantrums and retreating into a shell. Her slender preteen daughter was being groomed for sex, and Mayra’s own pregnant belly continued to swell. She had come this far to save her children from the horrors of her hometown, where three of her siblings and her husband had been murdered. But she found herself paralyzed in a place full of drug use, sexual violence, and noise.” (“Fleeing North in the Full Armor of God,” Christianity Today, June 18, 2019)

Maribel (Honduras)

“Maribel — a Garifuna woman from Honduras and mother of six children, ages 6 months to 16 years — only wanted to work. She baked coconut bread and sold it the streets of San Pedro Sula, Honduras, until a gang started demanding a cut — roughly 20 percent of her earnings. After threats and violence and futile attempts at negotiating with the gang, she fell behind in her payments. Gangsters eventually showed up at her daughter’s school to send a message of intimidation, forcing Maribel and her family to flee the country.” (“‘They put a gun to my head,’ says Honduran mother of six,” Catholic News Service, July 3, 2019)

Asylum-Seekers from Other Continents

Gurupreet Kaur (India)

“Gurupreet Kaur crossed the US-Mexico border shortly before her 7th birthday. The little girl wore a black short-sleeved shirt and black pants as she took her first steps in America. Before long, temperatures in the Arizona desert would climb to 108 degrees. Gurupreet’s mother would leave her with others as she went to search for water. And she would never see her daughter alive again. A day after the girl crossed into Arizona, Border Patrol agents found her remains.” (“The short life and long journey of the 6-year-old girl from India who died near the US-Mexico border,” CNN, June 24, 2019)

Nebane Abienwi (Cameroon)

“An asylum-seeking migrant detained by Immigration and Customs Enforcement was pulled off life support after his relatives said they requested that doctors continue the lifesaving measures.

More than a month later, the man’s body remains in the USA, his relatives said they have been given little information about his death, and his brother has twice been denied a visa to travel to the USA to identify the body and accompany it back home to Cameroon.” (“Migrant in ICE custody removed from life support over family’s objections,” USA Today, November 4, 2019)

Jamillah Nabunjo (Uganda)
Jamillah Nabunjo came to Juarez, Mexico, from Kampala, Uganda, in April to ask the United States for asylum. By the time she reached Juarez, there was a waiting list, 12, 656 names long, for turns to approach the border. Jamillah joined the list. While waiting five months for her chance to walk up to the port of entry, the mother of two’s health gradually worsened. Even after several visits to doctors, her health continued to decline. By the time it was finally her turn to approach the border, Jamillah was hospitalized, in a coma. She died before ever having the chance to set foot in the United States.” (Estamos Unidos, CLINIC)

Lolie (Democratic Republic of the Congo)

“Lolie’s ordeal had begun in Makala prison in March of 2017; it ended in immigration court nearly two years later, when she was finally granted asylum and could start living as a free woman….’I am happy here. Thank you for helping me to be free.’” (“Prison Break,” National Justice for Our Neighbors, March 20, 2019)