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This family fled gangs and were separated at the border. Now Fort Worth is home.

Fort Worth Star-Telegram - 7/26/2018

July 26--FORT WORTH -- In La Ceiba Atlantida, a port city in Honduras, Diana's family of seven was already marked by violence when a gang demanded that her 14-year-old deliver drugs.

It was a day in February, when Samir came home with news that bad men showed up at his school. Diana's heart sank with understanding that someone was trying to force her son into a life of crime. Years ago, she lost another son to Honduras' violence.

Honduras has made international news with one of the highest murder rates in the world. It was 86.5 per 100,000 people in 2011. Despite dropping to 42.8 killings per 100,000 people in 2017, the U.S. Department of State warns Americans to reconsider travel to the Central American country.

"Violent crime, such as homicide and armed robbery, is common," states the travel advisory. "Violent gang activity, such as extortion, violent street crime, rape, and narcotics and human trafficking, is widespread. Local police and emergency services lack the resources to respond effectively to serious crime."

Diana said groups of men will hit and bully young boys. She said they even rape them.

"They looked for him," Diana said in Spanish, describing these men: "Son maleantes (They are criminals)."

A distraught Diana and her husband, Abel, formed a plan that would take the parents and three youngest children to Fort Worth, Texas, where friends described a safer life. They shared their story of their journey that took them through Guatemala's cities, towns and brush on foot and bus. They traveled through Mexico via bus and on top of railroad cars.

They asked that their first and last names not be used for fear of retribution.

In May, when they finally reached the U.S.-Mexico border, the family was among Central American parents who were apprehended and separated from children under President Donald Trump's zero tolerance policy.

This week, tears fill Diana's eyes as she described being separated from her husband and daughter and how on July 20, the family reunited at a bus station in downtown Dallas, where they hugged, cried and laughed.

"Only God gives you the strength to go on," Diana said, explaining that her faith carried her through this journey, a journey she said she would endure again for her son.

'We couldn't sleep in our house anymore'

Diana, 43, and her husband, Abel, 39, care for a blended family that includes a 25-year-old, a 21-year-old, a 14-year-old from the mother's previous marriage and the couple's youngest children. David is 10 and Michelle is 7.

Diana's 21-year-old son sits in prison in Honduras because he killed a person who attacked him, she said. When he was about 14, gangs came by looking to lure him into their criminal activities, she said. He was beat up and once attacked with a machete. Eventually, the conflict resulted in her son killing a man.

"He defended himself," she said.

When Samir described how men in a car sought him out, the couple decided to leave Honduras and seek asylum in the United States.

Diana said her husband, a construction worker, earned money for a hasty journey after the family received a handwritten note threatening that they would be beheaded.

"We came because we couldn't sleep in our house anymore," Diana said.

Seeking help from police is not always an option in Honduras, she said. "Sometimes, you don't know who to trust."

On April 9, the couple left with the three youngest children. They put two changes of clothes for each child in backpacks. She said they didn't have much money either -- about $100 if one converts their Honduran lempira into U.S. dollars.

The family traveled mostly by bus through Guatemala, which sits between Honduras and Mexico. Diana said she sat with her sons while her husband sat with their daughter.

At one point, they became alarmed when they spotted a familiar car.

"Mama,'" Samir told his mother. "That's the car. That's the car that came to get me."

Panicked, they began to run. They separated and couldn't find each other. Diana ended up with the two boys. They didn't have cellphones.

Diana and the boys continued heading north to the United States on foot, bus and train. She said they rode on top of five trains through Mexico. Her sons helped her climb on the rail cars when the trains would stop.

Eventually, mother and sons crossed the Rio Grande near Piedras Negras, Mexico, into Eagle Pass, Texas.

Generally, asylum seekers present themselves to immigration authorities at ports of entry and request sanctuary to begin a process before the courts. Immigration attorneys said families often learn about the asylum process from other immigrants or family.

"I imagine it is word of mouth," said Jennifer de Haro, managing attorney for the Fort Worth office of the Refugee and Immigrant Center for Education and Legal Services.

"We walked about five hours," Diana said. "Walking. Walking. Walking."

They turned themselves in to authorities who asked for their immigration papers, she said.

"I said, 'No, I don't have papers,'" Diana said. "We said, 'We are coming from Honduras.'"

'Tears of blood'

Earlier this year, U.S. Attorney General Jeff Sessions announced the zero tolerance policy, which charged adults who crossed the U.S.-Mexico border without a visa with illegal entry. The policy was applied at the border, including to families seeking asylum from Central American countries experiencing gang violence. Parents were charged and detained while children were placed in the custody of the Office of Refugee Resettlement.

After a national outcry and federal lawsuit, a federal judge ordered family separations at the border to end -- and for families that were separated to be reunited by Thursday.

Diana said after they asked for asylum, immigration authorities took to them to a cold detention facility they called la heilera, or the icebox. They were given mylar blankets, sheets of shiny material that looked like aluminum foil.

Later, mother and boys were taken to the South Texas Family Residential Center in Dilley, where they stayed for about 17 days. Those were stressful days in which Diana said she wanted to find her husband and daughter.

Samir said the brothers wanted to make their mother feel better. Asked how they were in detention he said: "Very sad because my mom cried all the time."

One day, a worker at the Dilley center checked a computer and discovered that Abel was in detention too. He was being held about 20 minutes away at a detention center in Pearsall. But he had been separated from Michelle, the 7-year-old. She was at a center in San Antonio.

Abel and Michelle had also crossed at Eagle Pass and turned themselves to U.S. Border Patrol.

"It was terrible that they take away a child. It was hard," Abel told the Star-Telegram. He said he told his wife he cried "tears of blood" while in detention.

Mother and boys were released June 21 pending their immigration cases in Dallas. Since then, Diana has stayed with friends in east Fort Worth.

Last week, Abel was released from the Pearsall facility and reunited with his daughter. They stayed in a hotel in South Texas with help from Catholic Charities. On Friday, father and daughter traveled to North Texas so they could reunite with the rest of the family.

The back-to-back reunions were emotional for Abel.

"I was crying and laughing at the same time," he said. "It was very hard."

'Anyone is welcome here'

In Fort Worth, the family is getting help with their immigration cases from the Refugee and Immigrant Center for Education and Legal Services. They will need to find attorneys and present their asylum cases before a judge, de Haro said. Diana and Abel may be able to get work pemits, but it is not a given, de Haro said.

It is also unclear how long it will take for the cases to be heard. De Haro said one of her asylum cases was pushed from July 2015 to 2019.

"This phase is waiting and preparing for your final hearing and hoping that nothing goes wrong in the interim," de Haro said.

Juana Guzman, a community organizer with the refugee and immigrant center, is helping Samir and his siblings enroll in schools. This week, she delivered welcome letters from members of the immigrant advocacy group, United Fort Worth.

"Tonight, I was told about you and your family," reads one letter. "I'm so sorry you had to leave Honduras, and I pray that your family will be reunited and live in the United States."

Jessica Ramirez, a leader with United Fort Worth, said they feel a need to take care of Diana's family. They are also collecting clothes for the family.

Ramirez said they want to use kind actions to counter the message that immigrants aren't welcome to the United States.

"They took her children away," Ramirez said. "Her husband was put in detention. We are welcoming and anybody is welcome here."

At the east Fort Worth apartment, Samir wears an easy smile. The teen said he feels good about the new home they hope to build -- one that will include a new school and friends. David, too, is eager to start fifth grade.

Michelle is shy and doesn't stray far from her mother and brothers. At church recently, she clung to her parents and didn't want to be with the other children, Abel said.

Abel said they don't want Samir to fear going to school. His hope is that Samir will grow to be "a man of good."

He said they had to leave Honduras. "There was no other way."

Diane Smith, 817-390-7675, @dianeasmith1

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