Stories from the Border

1. A Painful Passage
2. Life in the Balance

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Story of Yencis Elijardi Canaca Contreras

October 26, 2004

I was born on February 8, 1987 in a small aldea called Netapa in the Esquias Municipal in the state of Comayagua in Honduras. I am the oldest of 7 children at 17 years of age (the youngest is one year of age).

Our family lives off of a small farm where we plant frijoles and arroz. (beans and rice). Our town is a 4 hour walk to the nearest electricity source and a 2 hour walk and then a 4 hour bus ride to the capital of Honduras (Tegucigalpa).

I was able to attend school through six grades (completed Primaria). After that I worked with my father and 3 brothers in the fields tending our farm. Before leaving Honduras I spent my time working in the fields and attending church where I learned to play the electric guitar. How did our church have an electric guitar when there was no electricity?

The church had a car battery that someone would take on horseback for two hours to get it charged, and then bring it back so we could have the guitar for church services.

My life was hard there because often our crops would fail — Hurricane Mitch took out our frijol crop and this year there was a significant drought.

What made my life impossible there was the physical abuse of my father. He would repeatedly fight violently with my mother and if I tried to protect her he would beat up on me.

He was frequently drunk and was always angry, sober or not. One time he hung me up in a tree by the neck so that my toes barely touched the ground—for about 30 minutes. I left Honduras escaping this violent and impossible situation.

I walked and took buses crossing Honduras and Guatemala. On the border of Guatemala and Mexico I caught a freight train with about 500 others. We had to hang on to the 2-3 ladders that climb up each car and there would hold on for dear life about 10 people per ladder.

It was a very dangerous way to travel—for if you tired or fell asleep and slipped, the train would run over you, mutilating your body or killing you. Some people died this way along the way. At one point early on, robbers and gang members came and robbed me and took all the money I had. Later robbers stopped the train and killed five people but I just barely escaped. Women were raped along the way.

Since I had no money I had to ask others for food and I lost a lot of weight. The only way we could get water was for those who had plastic jugs and who could fill them up when the train stopped. The worst stretch was when the train didn’t stop for over 48 hours. It was a terrible trip, one that I just couldn’t repeat again.

At one point, Mexican authorities stormed the train and caught many of my fellow travelers, but I was lucky enough to escape. I was also lucky that one night I got to stay at a “safe house” in Mexico that was run by a church (many immigrants stayed there) and one time I was nearly faint from hunger and cold when a stranger invited me to his home and fed me.

I finally made it to Nogales, Mexico where I had money sent from undocumented relatives in the U.S. to pay for a coyote who would take me to Tucson and then to my relatives. We had to walk in the desert from Nogales almost the whole way Tucson—it was a long and hard walk and we had to sleep in the cold desert. Once in Tucson I staid in the coyote’s home and then he drove us across the U.S. Unfortunately his car broke down outside of Lubbock, Texas and we had to start walking.

It was there that the Border Patrol caught me and sent me to El Paso. By this time my shoes were completely worn through and broken, and I had no luggage—we had to travel light so we could run away, which I did a lot along this trip that took 18 days from Netapa to Nogales.

The Border Patrol handled us roughly and I was scared by the time I reached the detention center in El Paso. But once there I found many friends and the people treated me well. Now that I am out I call my friends that left to relatives in the U.S. and I also call the teachers, counselors, and caretakers at Southwest Key. I even stopped by once to talk to them.

At times though I was very sad and concerned about my situation while at Southwest Key. I don’t know how I could have managed without Vicki—the woman who works for Las Americas. She seemed to really care and was doing everything she could to find a way for me to not return to Honduras. I felt comfortable with her; some days I don’t know what I would have done if I had not had the hope that she provided. She helped me a lot to understand my situation so that I could decide what I needed to do—which was to find a sponsor family.

I never would have had a chance to have a sponsor family, leave Southwest Key, and seek asylum without Vicki and Las Americas.

I met my sponsor family through the Rev. LoraKim Joyner. She came with members of her church to provide religious services for us. She needed a guitar player for our songs as she brought an acoustic guitar. The following 3 weeks she also brought her electric bass guitar and we played together. I also met her husband there as he brought his guitar and the three of us played music together.

I asked if her church could help me and she and her husband agreed to help me out.

Currently I live with them in their home and attend Chapin High School I am very happy. I really like school and am determined to learn English. My hope is that they will be come my “Managing Conservators” and that I will be able to stay here in the U.S. legally through a Juvenile Visa. I am afraid to go back to Honduras and be around my father. I help my U.S. “parents” Rev. LoraKim Joyner and Rev. Meredith Garmon at their church, the Unitarian Universalist Community of El Paso by playing music.

I also attend my home denomination’s local church, Templo de Trinidad (Assembly of God).

My trip from Honduras was very difficult because in reality I suffered much. Where I was in the detention center it never entered my imagination that I would find people that could help me leave so that I could have a chance in the United States. I never thought or believed that I would find people who would give me the help I needed and now I live very happily with them.

LIFE IN THE BALANCE: Stories of Survival

By J. David McNamara, D.Min. / Agua Viva Director of Special Projects

The evening that 14 year-old Dunia Barahona crossed the southern border of the United States from Mexico, it wasn’t through an “official” port of entry. Indeed, this young citizen of Honduras, separated from her parents, was much more interested in survival than in the legality of her immigration status! And, as happens in so many similar stories, Dunia was discovered by agents of the U.S. Border Patrol and detained along with others who had crossed the border without papers and under the cover of darkness. What happened next, however, was both tragic and fortunate.

Taken to a juvenile detention facility near El Paso, Texas, Dunia languished in a type of legal “limbo” for months during which time little was done to define her status as an “alien” living in, what was to her, a very, very foreign world.

Week after week, she would see young people come into the facility and, eventually, leave . . . but she stayed.

Dunia’s case came to the attention of a unique El Paso-based organization. That organization, Las Americas, had as one of its primary objectives the “rescue” of young persons who had been snared in the post-9/11-established Department of Homeland Security’s zeal aimed at protecting our border with Mexico from terrorist incursions.

Although Dunia clearly was not a terrorist, at the same time she did not have the proper (or any) credentials granting her legal entry. After what seemed an eternity in detention, Dunia was granted release after 10 months in detention.

To make a very long story very short, Las Americas and its executive director, Franciscan Missionaries of Mary Sister Liliane Alam, took up the young girl’s cause and began the arduous process of exploring legal strategies, filling out forms, seeking the assistance of Sr. Marlene Perrotte, RSM an accredited representative at Las Amicas, and, ultimately, searching for an appropriate place for Dunia to live when all the paperwork and court appearances had been completed. In the end, the young immigrant survived her ordeal and was granted her legal status and freedom after almost a year in detention.

Indeed, Las Americas seems to be capable of making “miracles” happen in cases such as Dunia’s. . .but it, too, is an entity struggling for its own survival. Fortunately, however, Las Americas today operates under the capable and energetic guidance of Sister Liliane whose professional enthusiasm for alleviating the plight detained children is matched, perhaps, only by that of the well-known worldwide organization, Amnesty International.

Likewise, Las Americas is blessed with the substantial talents of its other valuable staff members: Micaela Ashe Guthrie, Sister Loan Kim Nguyen, FMM, Catherine Hudak, Juanita Genis, Angélica Rubio, Martha Estrada, and Virginia Longoria.

In her three years at the helm of Las Americas, Sister Liliane, her staff and the Board of Directors have lifted the organization from the brink of financial collapse to more solvent ground.

Nonetheless, each day is a struggle to survive. . .and the tasks seem to grow as time goes on. Indeed, without the regular arrival of grants and the donations of generous businesses, organizations, and individuals, Las Americas would cease to exist.

And, worse yet, its clientele of between 300 and 350 detained children between the ages of 10 and 17 would lose a staunch advocate in their quest for freedom.

Las Americas, however, is more than just a single-faceted organization. In fact, it engages in four specific areas of advocacy on behalf of disadvantaged persons: “The Asylum Project” and “Justice for Women and Children” which most directly benefited Dunia Barahona; “Battered Immigrant Women” which assists domestic violence victims in seeking legal residency under the Violence Against Women Act, and victims of trafficking; and “Poder de la Mujer” which educates and organizes low-income women.

But after her struggle for survival and the intervention of Las Americas, what finally happened to Dunia? Happily, she now resides in Las Cruces with a wonderful family, Alicia and Lupe Cardona who has accepted her as their own daughter.

Currently, she is working toward a December, 2004, graduation as a senior at Oñate High School. Following graduation, she wants to serve the world and the community that has embraced her by becoming a physician. And from all indicators, this young refugee from Central America should both do well in her studies and should become a productive contributor to her adoptive country—that same country that held her life and survival in abeyance not so long ago.

Donate to Las Americas and help us reach out to unaccompanied children!

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