After Customs and Border Protection (CBP) agents finally came to terms with the fact that they were violating U.S. and international law by blocking Central American families from petitioning for asylum at the San Ysidro Port of Entry (their official story was that they had reached capacity), one officer stepped to the waiting group and told them eight people would be permitted to come forward to be processed:
Would the officer choose, asked Laura Gault, an attorney with Human Rights First. No, he said, it was up to the migrants.
Women and children should go first, someone said.
This already vulnerable group of asylum-seekers—showing each other the humanity and mercy lacking from a president that has attacked them for weeks on end—selected the most vulnerable among them to go first, including Gabriela Hernandez, a 27-year-old from Honduras. She has two young children, ages 2 and 6, and is pregnant with a third. She fled domestic abuse:
And with that, Hernandez and her boys disappeared into the processing center, perhaps for hours or days or weeks. A step closer, perhaps, to the United States.
Hernandez's plan always had been to claim asylum, given the danger to her life and her children in Honduras. Still, she knew it held no guarantees.
"I don't know what I'm going to do," she'd said earlier. "I cannot go back to my country.
For weeks, CNN has tracked Hernandez’s journey from Honduras to the U.S/Mexico border, through hunger, through sickness, through doubt. While Hernandez has an aunt in the U.S. (she’s tried to memorize her number in case U.S. officials take her belongings), her entire family is in Honduras. She was forced to leave when it just became too dangerous for her and her kids:
"My mom and I are close. But I am really close to my grandma. I have only been able to talk to her once (since I left)."
Gabriela got out of Honduras very quickly. It's one of the most dangerous countries in the world, and gang violence is rife.
She'd suffered domestic abuse from her husband and left him. But then gang members found her one day, demanding to know where her ex was. They gave her 12 hours to give him up or said they would kill her 6-year-old.
She left that night, with her sons and the clothes they wore.
Part of her journey included riding the “La Bestia,” or "the Beast,” part of the series of massive freight trains that go north through Mexico. Passengers climb onto the top of cars, or hang off the sides and anything that can hold up a person, in a treacherous ride that has resulted in migrants falling and losing their limbs, or lives. Hernandez and her kids emerged terrified, but alive:
As soon as they reach Mazatlan, the family heads straight for the showers. It has been 10 days since Gabriela had an opportunity to wash her hair with warm water.
"Even though I was congested, I could smell the train in my hair. I still had rust from the train in my hair," she says.
Omar is feeling better, but the family is homesick, missing their relatives. Gabriela manages to borrow a phone. She calls home and talks to her mom.
Something seems wrong. Her mother is reluctant to tell her, but eventually breaks the news. Gabriela's beloved grandmother is very sick.
"I don't know if I will ever see my grandmother again," she says.
She wants to go back to see her family, but she can't quit now, she tells herself. She is too close to the United States.
That night, they board a bus for a 12-hour ride to Hermosillo.
Food availability for the family has been a rollercoaster, and this is particularly dangerous for sick kids and pregnant women. In one stop, the family got roasted chicken, tortillas and rice from volunteers. It was the most food they’d had in weeks. Other times, they depended on the kindness of other asylum-seekers, who would share an apple, or whatever little they had:
At the shelter, a volunteer who knows Gabriela is pregnant pulls her aside.
"She said, 'Come. I'm going to make you an egg, just like I know you like to eat them.'"
She served Gabriela salty scrambled eggs, indeed just like Gabriela likes them. Gabriela then had tortillas, soup, beef stew, potatoes and rice. She hasn't eaten this much food in weeks.
"Even the smell of it was delicious," she says
She was worried about nausea, but it never came.
"It gave me strength," she remembers.
3,000 miles from the start of their journey to live, Gabriela and her kids wait and worry. She’s heard U.S. officials separate parents from their kids, and they have been. U.S. law requires officials to consider the asylum claims of individuals who present themselves at a port of entry, but unlike Donald Trump’s suggestions, it does not guarantee them asylum. So, Gabriela and her family hope that America’s promise as a beacon of light has a space for them.