On the road to asylum
SAN PEDRO SULA, HONDURAS—From a very young age, Araceli Perez aspired to leave her hometown—or better said, her home country. As she grew older, this desire only intensified more and more: first, at the age of 14 when her cousin was abducted by a local mara group and found dead a week later; the second, when she became a mother.
“I come from a very conflictive colony within San Pedro Sula,” the 27-year-old recalled as she readjusted the position of her phone. She spoke with caution, explaining the complexity of migrating within the country.
“If you reside in Honduras, you can’t just move into another neighborhood. You can get killed that way.”
The only real option is to flee the country. However, it wasn’t until after Perez had her first child that she began to seriously consider this option—mostly, because she wanted a better future for her daughter. Yet, she never thought that this movement would occur as abruptly as it did.
“I wanted to plan, to move with safety, but no…It ended up being sudden.”
This unforeseen night eventually came when her husband arrived home from work, frightened and desperate. She clearly recounted the event. In a panic, her husband revealed that a couple of “mareros” (or, gang members) had threatened him earlier at his workplace, giving him only the night to leave the country. If not, the family’s lives would be at risk.
Without hesitation, Perez quickly gathered her belongings, whatever little she could, and fled from her home with her husband and daughter, a seven-year-old at the time.
LEFT: Migrants planning their paths
RIGHT: Migrant women with children
They knew the road ahead would be perilous; moreover, they weren’t leaving with very much information: how to navigate the routes to ensure they traveled through the safest cities or terrains, where exactly migrant shelters might be located, and whether they even had the capacity to take them in.
Taking into consideration all of these factors, Perez and her partner decided to leave their daughter with Perez’s mother who lived in another department within Honduras. They then fled, crossing the Honduran border overnight into Guatemala, and eventually utilizing a coyote to cross into Mexico within the next couple of days.
However, the couple would barely reach the southernmost state of Mexico, Chiapas, before they were apprehended by Mexican immigration authorities. After almost 500 miles of transit, they were swiftly deported back to Honduras.
Despite this brief time away from home, the family was still in danger. Simply returning home wasn’t an option. So, within the week, the family followed the same route to return to Mexico—this time, with their daughter.
By now, the last of their savings had been running out. By the time that the family departed from Honduras for the second time, they were left with only 2,000 Lempiras (approximately $83). This would be just enough to get them to the Capital of Guatemala.
Perez was left with no choice but to call her mother and ask her to take out a loan on their behalf.
“The truth is that it was a drastic expense for us.”
What little the family received from Perez’s mother helped them get into Mexico. The rest of the journey would be entrusted to the goodwill of others, and to God.
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By the time they reached Chiapas again, the famous 2018 “caravan” happened to be passing through Tapachula, a Mexican municipality located close to them, near the Guatemalan Border. Naturally, the couple decided to travel along with the thousands of other migrants, all fleeing similar situations of precarity and violence.
“We woke up one morning and saw them passing through the street. I told my husband, ‘Well, let’s go!’” She chuckled over the video chat cheerfully.
However, her facial expression soon changed the moment she began recounting the early struggles of her family’s long journey to the Southern Border.
“We experienced a lot of dangers. We slept on the street a lot, sometimes on mats.”
Yet, Perez stated that the most difficult part of the journey was all the walking they had to endure—in total, approximately 2,700 miles.
Migrant boy sleeping on the ground
“We had to walk so many kilometers, and sometimes it was extremely cold.”
One time while in Chiapas, the family began walking from the early hours of the morning, all the way until 10 p.m. with just a few breaks in order to get to their next destination. Surely, this wasn’t something the family did by choice. It was to survive.
“That day, we walked and walked and couldn’t find a place to stay. It was a mountainous area, and we began to worry because night was setting in.”
Fortunately, the family, along with the thousands of other migrants, came across a small town by the end of the night, where they were able to find to refuge. She explained that the experience was full of different emotions. They didn’t know what to expect each consecutive day.
Perez also detailed how the journey was especially difficult, having to care for her seven-year-old daughter on the road. As any child would, her daughter frequently complained. She often cried from exhaustion, or because she missed her home in Honduras, and her grandmother.
Migrant mother holding crying child
“I would tell her; it was a change that was hard…but it was necessary. I tried assuring her that one day we would be fine.”
Of course, Perez would tell her daughter this, knowing that nothing was certain. With a painful look in her eyes, she described more in detail.
“She was seven years old at the time, and of course she didn’t understand. I would try to calm her emotions by telling her, ‘Yes love, we’re almost there, we’re so close.’ She would feel calmer after I told her that. She was just a child, but we had to walk all those thousands of kilometers.”
Perez and her partner tried carrying their daughter whenever they could, but it became exhausting. Still, they both did their best taking turns whenever they could.
In attempt to encapsulate her journey, overall Perez shared that, “it was bittersweet, to put it that way. One day we would be fine, and another day we would be depressed. Some days we were extremely tired and other days with much hope.”
“But thanks to god, we were together as a family,” Perez explained.
Eventually, the family made it to Tijuana, where they were welcomed at a local church-turned-refugee shelter, Iglesia Camino de Salvación.
Zoom out to see Perez's entire migration journey