Earlier this month, Gabriela Hernandez and her two young children were among the first from the so-called “caravan” of Central American families to be able to petition for asylum at the San Ysidro Port of Entry. “She and her boys were held for four days … then flown to Texas where they spent eight days in an Immigration and Customs Enforcement detention facility,” CNN reports. The day after Mother’s Day, Hernandez, who is pregnant with her third child, reunited with an aunt in Anaheim:
They hug and kiss. It quickly becomes a group hug as Hernandez's older son Omar joins in the embrace. Two-year-old Jonathan watches, a bit more hesitant to participate.
The aunt notices and kneels down with her arms wide open toward the toddler. He hesitates for only a second, then jumps into her arms and kisses her cheek.
It's the day after Omar's seventh birthday, the day after Mothers' Day and there's a family reunion. But the celebration is for so much more than any of that. Hernandez is relieved to finally be in Los Angeles and to have a home once again, even though it may be temporary.
The family had traveled 3,000 miles from Honduras to the U.S.—escaping Hernandez’s abusive husband—only to be blocked by Customs and Border Protection (CBP) agents from asking for asylum, in direct violation of U.S. law. Agents finally retreated, allowing a small group to go forward, including Hernandez. “Then on Saturday night, Hernandez was asked to sign a document that she would check in with immigration officials and present herself before a judge next week. Officials put an ankle monitor on her, but then removed it”:
"They took it off immediately when they realized I was pregnant," she says. And with that, she was released from the Karnes County Residential Center, southeast of San Antonio.
Immigration officers took her and her sons to a bus station. She didn't have any money. A woman handed her a blanket, sandwiches for the kids and a piece of paper. The document explained in English that Gabriela only speaks Spanish and needs help with the itinerary that listed four bus routes beginning in El Paso and ending in Anaheim a day later.
"I found a lot of people who spoke Spanish and helped me," Hernandez recalls.
Hernandez’s entire family is back in Honduras, worried and waiting. Here, she hadn’t seen the aunt she was supposed to meet in years. But, there was something familiar:
… she has the same facial structure as her own mother. It is her aunt, who'd changed her diapers decades ago.
"I'm happy you're here, finally. Welcome home," her aunt says.
Hernandez’s aunt, who did not want to be identified by CNN, is financially struggling herself, “but says she can't turn her back on blood, even if it means more sacrifices”:
She raided her small savings to pay for the three bus tickets for Hernandez, Omar and Jonathan, when immigration officials called her to say they would be released.
"That means a lot to me," Hernandez says. "I have to find a job because I cannot be a burden on her."
But Hernandez already knows a job will require a work permit that will take months to obtain. She will have to put the boys in school and help them with homework in a language she doesn't understand. And then there is her pregnancy, now four months along, and she will have to find a way to pay for health care.
And while Hernandez and her children are now here, it doesn’t guarantee them that they’ll be successful in their asylum petition. They wait, and they hope:
"I know it will be hard," she says. "It can't be more difficult than what I have already lived through."