What exactly drives tens of thousands of asylum seekers to travel weeks, months, even years to come to the United States? Those who make the perilous journey north are often at the mercy of coyotes, police, and thieves as they trek through unknown territory by bus and on foot. For many, however, what’s behind them is worse than the unknown that they face: to return home simply means not to survive.
In these cells, asylum seekers often wait weeks and even months to be released. Even then, however, safety is not guaranteed. While one in four asylum seekers were given sanctuary in the United States in 2010, today only one in 12 is afforded the same protections.
I still experience nightmares over what happened to me, with the sexual, physical, and emotional abuse and trauma that I have experienced. However, I wake up and am thankful for having found real safety in Chicago. It was my hope that after so much abuse and mistreatment as a homosexual, and the prospect of even more abuse and mistreatment if I was sent back home, that I would be granted asylum in the United States. And finally, after months of waiting, I was.
On the journey, the only thing that mattered to me was my son. The first part of the trip was by bus, but as we got closer to the border, we were moved into an open truck bed with 135 people. We only had a little bit of water. The top of the truck was open to the sun, rain, and wind. I remembered people fainting around us, and I just held my son in my arms because he was so weak he would only sleep. When he would wake up he would say he wanted food, but I didn’t have any to give to him. We couldn’t even get off the truck, because the driver didn’t want to stop.
