Trapped by a search for freedom, the life of an Alabama refugee
Just a couple of miles from the Mexican border, where approximately 200,000 immigrants illegally cross every year, 14-year-old Guatemalan Byron Raxcaco came face-to-face with reality of life on this nearly 2,000 mile border.
A local drug lord demanded that Raxcaco and his chaperone pay $800 for safe passage across the border, where criminal gangs ferry humans and drugs across daily, and where police presence is almost non-existent, he said in an interview with AL.com. Poor and desperate to reach the U.S., Raxcaco was detained in a hotel in the Mexican region of Senora for a day until his aunt in Semmes, Alabama, gathered the money for the drug lord. After paying up, Raxcaco was released and free to start a new life in the United States.
He approached a border patrol post, told them he was an unaccompanied minor and asked for political asylum.
In the four years since crossing the border, he has moved in with his aunt, enrolled in school, learned English, and got himself a girlfriend. He plays as a striker for the local high school's soccer team and dreams of one day making it as a professional player. But given that his family back home is poor, his mind has been consumed with getting a job and providing money to his parents and sisters left behind in Guatemala.
"I left Guatemala because I want a new life, so I can help my family," said Raxcaco to AL.com on a recent visit to an immigration court in New Orleans. "It's very difficult in Guatemala with life and the government."
But since the election of President Donald Trump, there has been a seismic shift in the White House's attitude toward immigrants of all statuses. The shift has left immigrants who entered the country without documentation, like Raxcaco, unsure of what their future will be.
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During an appearance in front of an immigration judge in early August, Raxcaco sat at the back of the room awaiting his name to be called. As he waited patiently, the Honorable Eric W. Marsteller, a Justice Department Judge, saw four people. All four were from Central America and faced removal proceedings, while three of the four resided in Mobile, Alabama.
At some point in their proceedings they each claimed asylum, according to the court.
When Raxcaco was called, Judge Marsteller noted his asylum application had been filed with the United States Citizenship and Immigration Service (USCIS), which has to make a decision on the application before any immigration judge can decide to either deport or grant leave to stay. He gave Raxcaco a continuation until late December, where only his lawyer will appear.
While Rexcaco came to the U.S. to seek out democracy, freedom and a new life, he has in a paradoxical way been trapped by that very search. In order to remain eligible for permanent residence he has to stay in Alabama at his aunt's address, he cannot earn money and if he were to leave the country to visit his family his refugee statues would be revoked.
Unaccompanied minors on the rise
In 2013, the year Raxcaco entered the U.S., so did another 40,000 children, many of whom faced dangers in making the long and difficult journey from Central and South America, according to U.S Border and Customs Protection data (CBP). Stories of human trafficking and violence have littered the testimony of children that have made it across. But even on the U.S. side of the border, the children face other dangers.
Many of the children who traveled in from Mexico were placed into what past reports have described as cramped conditions in government run homes, where allegations of violence and sexual abuse have arisen, according to a CNN report from 2014. Raxcaco confirmed that the conditions were cramped.
Last year, nearly 60,000 unaccompanied minors made a similar journey to the border, according CBP.
It's believed about 1 million people legally cross the border each day, according to U.S. CBP data. Illegal crossings are harder to measure, but CBP apprehensions have plummeted since 2000, going from a peak of 1.6 million a year to around 408,000 on the Southwest border last year, according to Department of Homeland Security data. In March, the CBP reported that monthly apprehensions were at a 17 year low.
The Institute for Defense Analyses, a nonprofit, nonpartisan research group that works solely for U.S. government agencies, estimates that about 200,000 immigrants illegally made it across in 2015--down from an estimated two million entries in 2000.
Despite the uncertainty and legal obstacles in making it to the U.S., children like Raxcaco don't get a free ride. They have to prove they are running away from something. "In Guatemala there is a lot of violence and many people like me are forced to join gangs," he said. "It's hard to find work and the government cannot help. So we leave."
Raxcaco has now spent more of his teenage years in Semmes, Alabama, than in Guatemala. He currently lives with his aunt, both of her children and two cousins. His aunt is an illegal immigrant while the two cousins are also going through the same asylum application process as he is.
Along with his aunt's boyfriend, they all squeeze into a small apartment that sits at the bottom of a dirt road in Semmes, just over 20 miles from the Mississippi border. They chip in for rent and groceries when they can. While his case is being adjudicated, Raxcaco has struggled with the pressures of high school and being an immigrant who, by law, cannot currently work to help out his family.
It's a frustrating time for a young man of his age, said Juan Torres, founder of the Mobile-based charity Belong, a non-profit group that aims to assist immigrants settling in Alabama.
"Many kids like Byron drop out of school or lose complete motivation to study because of the reality of life in the shadows, the life of an immigrant," said Torres. "They have to save money for a lawyer, they also have a new life in the U.S. plus the pressure of just being a foreigner in a new system, and in a new school. This drives them to not want to study and instead help their family out and pay for their own financial obligations, so often they see themselves as a burden."
Raxcaco's lawyer offered to reduce her immigration services from nearly $400 a month to just $20. That barely covers the cost of lunch when she represents her client, Torres said.
Torres' story is strikingly similar to Raxcaco's. He was sent by his father to work on a farm as a 14-year-old, and instead found himself wandering from city to city in Mexico before deciding to come to the United States as a student. Now a permanent resident, Torres spends much of his time trying to help those who have followed in his footsteps.
But there have been barriers that have left him disappointed in the immigrant community he has worked so hard to build.
When young men like Raxcaco need to be in court in New Orleans, it often requires the help of a driver to get him there and back. That costs Raxcaco and his family around $300. If someone gets a speeding ticket, there is one woman in the community who will charge $60 to go online and pay it (including the cost of the ticket.) "Poor people are always taken advantage of the most," said Torres.
After Raxcaco's court appearance was over, Torres took him to see the New Orleans sights. They watched live street music, talked with locals and tried the famous beignets at Cafe Du Monde. "This kind of exposure is very important to children like Byron," explained Torres. "Families and people like him don't believe that trips like this or days out are meant for them. It's not part of the culture to think like that. They are more concentrated on working and providing. That needs to change."
On the way back to car, Torres and Raxcaco walked along the New Orleans waterfront. And it was there, under the afternoon sunshine, with the powdered sugar from his first ever beignet still on his t-shirt, that the young Guatemalan who is now 1200 miles from his home and family happened upon some hope.
He found the Monument to Immigrants, a statue that celebrates the journey and story of immigrants who moved to New Orleans and the United States.
After reading the inscription, which dedicated the statue "to the courageous men and women who left their homeland seeking freedom and opportunity and a better life in a new country," Raxcaco turned to Torres and asked "is this about us?"
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