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While our team has reviewed it, there may be errors.\u003c/em>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Ericka Cruz Guevarra \u003c/strong>[00:01:09] Early in Donald Trump’s first term as president, caravans of Central Americans seeking asylum were arriving to Tijuana at the border with San Diego. Many groups here in the U.S. Made their way there to provide direct aid to the newly arrived migrants. One of them was a group of Central American students from UC Berkeley who’d started meeting as a way to build community and visibility around issues affecting Central Americans. On campus, they also had their own dreams of starting a Central American Studies Department at UC Berkeley.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[ad fullwidth]\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Arlette Jacomé \u003c/strong>[00:01:54] There was just a lot around immigration and there was a lot around Central American migration and like the way Central Americans were being described in the public that really came to the forefront. And so I think it was very much perfect timing.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Ericka Cruz Guevarra \u003c/strong>[00:02:13] Cal students with roots in Honduras, Guatemala, Nicaragua, El Salvador, and Costa Rica wanted a closer study of their cultural backgrounds. For them, their specific stories often got lost in broader conversations about Latinos and even immigration in the U.S. And establishing a Central American Studies Department at UC Berkeley was one answer to that.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Lesly Reyes Reyes \u003c/strong>[00:02:42] Being Central American, we’re always seen as less than, just because our countries aren’t known as much. Being Salvadoran, everyone always assumed that, oh, you’re either affiliated with gang violence or they just assume a lot about the Civil War.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Ericka Cruz Guevarra \u003c/strong>[00:02:59] Today, the students fighting for a Central American Studies Department at UC Berkeley.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Mel Velasquez \u003c/strong>[00:03:18] According to the Census, the San Francisco-Oakland-Fremont metropolitan area has a population of around 145,000 immigrants from Central America. So that’s also like not including like first gens like me who were born here, but our parents are from Central America.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Ericka Cruz Guevarra \u003c/strong>[00:03:43] Mel Velasquez is the production intern for The Bay.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Mel Velasquez \u003c/strong>[00:03:48] Here in California, there’s a large population of Mexican Americans and Mexican immigrants. They make up a majority of the Latine community, which is natural, there are more people in Mexico than in Central America. But what these other sources I’ve talked to and other people I’ve talk to have spoken about is just how a lot of the conversations are very Mexico-centric. It’s very like common for people to just be like, oh yeah, okay, so you’re Latino, so, you’re Mexican. That’s something I’ve gotten like my entire life. I actually didn’t even know I was Central American until like kindergarten. I always thought I was Mexican because other kids would be like yeah. And I was like, yeah, that makes sense.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Ericka Cruz Guevarra \u003c/strong>[00:04:39] Yeah, but like, as you were saying, there’s many people from these countries have their own histories. And for, I guess, people who don’t know what are some big moments that led Central Americans to come here to the Bay Area.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Mel Velasquez \u003c/strong>[00:04:53] The second half of the 20th century, there were the civil wars in Central America, which led a lot of folks from these countries to flee here, into the Mission District in particular. In Honduras, there was the presidential coup in 2009 that also led a lot of people here. And also the civil wars that happened from around like the 60s to the 90s. They were Cold War fears from the United States that like, oh, we’re gonna have communist regime like in our backyard.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Ronald Reagan \u003c/strong>[00:05:34] Central America is America. It’s at our doorstep, and it’s become the stage for a bold attempt by the Soviet Union, Cuba, and Nicaragua to install communism by force throughout the hemisphere.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Ericka Cruz Guevarra \u003c/strong>[00:05:52] Well, I know you met someone whose family is from Central America to talk about some of these just sort of shared histories that you’re talking about. Tell me about Arlette Jacomé. Who is she and what’s her background?\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Mel Velasquez \u003c/strong>[00:06:07] I spoke with Arlette Jacomé and she was a student at UC Berkeley from around 2012 to 2017 and she’s Guatemalan.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Arlette Jacomé \u003c/strong>[00:06:19] Specifically tried to take Spanish classes and Latin American studies classes.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Mel Velasquez \u003c/strong>[00:06:24] I wanted to talk to Arlette because she was the co-founder of CAFE, which is Central Americans for Empowerment.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Ericka Cruz Guevarra \u003c/strong>[00:06:34] How does Arlette describe her first years at Cal?\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Mel Velasquez \u003c/strong>[00:06:38] So she felt like she was really alone.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Arlette Jacomé \u003c/strong>[00:06:42] I could spot Central Americans pretty easily and I was like you’re gonna be my friend but in terms of like structure or like organizationally or systemically speaking I was lonely.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Mel Velasquez \u003c/strong>[00:06:54] She was a first gen college student and she was looking for a group to be a part of that reflected her identity.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Arlette Jacomé \u003c/strong>[00:07:04] But I always wanted more. I always want more Central American community. And in my heart of hearts, since probably freshman year, I was like, if we had a Central American group, I would join and I wish I could do that.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Mel Velasquez \u003c/strong>[00:07:17] And there’s like other clubs, Latine affinity groups like MECHA, which is like a nationwide organization. And then there’s smaller clubs here and there that have specific needs for Latino students, but that she didn’t really identify with. And so she wanted to start CAFE, which is Central Americans for Empowerment.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Ericka Cruz Guevarra \u003c/strong>[00:07:42] I mean, this is 2016, 2017. What is the context around this time and what was happening in the news around immigration in particular as Arlette and other students were forming CAFE?\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Mel Velasquez \u003c/strong>[00:07:56] Yeah, so around this time was the first Trump administration. So this was the beginning of the anti-immigration rhetoric about building a border wall and a lot of racist comments about Mexicans in general and also, like, Central Americans lumped in there as well. So, there was a lot of Central Americans coming into the United States during this time as well and more specifically the Honduran caravans that were coming here. And they were at the San Diego-Tijuana border, the U.S.-Mexico border.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>CNN reporter \u003c/strong>[00:08:42] I want to show you exactly what’s happening behind me. You can see on this side, there are quite a few of people from the caravan that has arrived here to the US-Mexico border. They sort of have.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Mel Velasquez \u003c/strong>[00:08:55] So the cafe wasn’t built around that, those issues specifically, but it just happened to be that this was the political climate that CAFE was started in.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Arlette Jacomé \u003c/strong>[00:09:06] At the time, the media was just disparaging Central Americans and the caravans. There weren’t a lot of spaces for Central Americans in general to really like talk about that in a way that was like personal. Cause for us, it’s personal, right?\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Mel Velasquez \u003c/strong>[00:09:25] They did a lot of direct aid for the Honduran caravan at the border. Some students collected like clothes and money and toiletries and things that anybody can need. They went down south to Tijuana and they were talking to the women of the caravan and just giving them grooming services and helping them just feel normal, feel like a person. Another big goal of theirs was to create a Central American Studies Department. It doesn’t exist at Berkeley. Actually, no university in the Bay Area has a Central American Studies department. They have classes, but the first program for Central American Studies was created at Cal State Northridge. In the beginning, it was just like an idea. It was a dream. They didn’t actually think like when they were there that it would happen because… It’s a long process to create a department at a university. Other ethnicities and races have their own departments as well. And they have like the faculty and staff to educate other folks about things like Chicanx studies, and which is a very popular and nationwide program and that a lot of different universities have. So these students are like, okay, well, this exists somewhere. It exists at Cal State Northridge. Why can’t we have it over here? They want academics to teach Central American history, which is what they feel is very intertwined with U.S. History. The folks I talked to, they told me that they didn’t learn any of this when they were in school, and they were very interested in it.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Arlette Jacomé \u003c/strong>[00:11:25] Central American studies is more than just students who are Central American, who wanna identify within this higher ed space. It’s about understanding a history that is very American because the U.S. Has done so much with their imperialistic endeavors that has impacted Central Americans to where we’re here and now we have this interconnected history.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Ericka Cruz Guevarra \u003c/strong>[00:11:52] Coming up, how CAFE students today are trying to move the needle on a Central American Studies Department. Stay with us.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Ericka Cruz Guevarra \u003c/strong>[00:13:09] So CAFE started around the beginning of President Trump’s first term. It’s now 2025. How has it grown? Or changed?\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Mel Velasquez \u003c/strong>[00:13:18] So it’s definitely gone through some ebbs and flows throughout the years, and especially during COVID. But now, in 2025, there’s more students who are active in organizing around a Central American Studies department.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Lesly Reyes Reyes \u003c/strong>[00:13:35] We’re fighting for a department that’s just very important to us, but then also to the community.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Mel Velasquez \u003c/strong>[00:13:43] I talked to Lesly Reyes Reyes. She’s going to be a sophomore at Berkeley. She’s a pre-med major. She was really ambitious right at orientation.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Lesly Reyes Reyes \u003c/strong>[00:13:55] And I see that they posted, oh, we’re having a board application. So I was like, should I just go for it? I was, like, I might regret if I don’t. So I went ahead and like applied for board.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Mel Velasquez \u003c/strong>[00:14:06] Now, she is working on a class about Central American migration and identity.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Lesly Reyes Reyes \u003c/strong>[00:14:14] We’re going to start with a timeline from the 1930s all the way to the present. And then later on, we’re focusing on identifying the different murals that are related to Central American diaspora in the Mission District.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Mel Velasquez \u003c/strong>[00:14:27] There’s this thing at Berkeley called DeCal. So it’s basically a student-led class and there’s a faculty advisor, but it’s everything that a traditional class has, a syllabus, coursework, readings, lectures, and you can get units for them. She already made the syllabus. Now she’s working on the lectures and the homework and the readings. And so she told me that she wants this. Class to like encourage people of all backgrounds to join, not just Central American students.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Lesly Reyes Reyes \u003c/strong>[00:15:05] Someone that’s not Central American. I would just want them to feel more educated and kind of feel like, not pity that’s definitely not something I want someone to feel not pity for us, but kind of more like whoa like you guys are strong like you did that and like y’all are still fighting for your identities here in like the US\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Ericka Cruz Guevarra \u003c/strong>[00:15:29] Why is doing this an important piece of the puzzle to eventually establishing a Central American Studies Department?\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Mel Velasquez \u003c/strong>[00:15:38] I talked to Professor Enrique Lima. He is a continuing lecturer at Berkeley and he teaches two of the Central American classes at Berkeley. He was telling me that the university cares about enrollment.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Enrique Lima \u003c/strong>[00:15:55] My main concern for them was the university cares about numbers. The university is at some level an institution that cares about money.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Mel Velasquez \u003c/strong>[00:16:08] And if the students can prove that they have the numbers in this class, so if they’re consistent with teaching the DeCal, maybe if that has demand, there can be another one, and hopefully it’ll snowball into something like that.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Ericka Cruz Guevarra \u003c/strong>[00:16:28] What does Professor Lima think about CAFE’s goal of establishing a Central American Studies Department?\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Mel Velasquez \u003c/strong>[00:16:37] Yeah, he’s excited about the idea, but he’s also a little skeptical about it as well.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Enrique Lima \u003c/strong>[00:16:45] It’s a lot of work. It’s not just where would it be housed, all the staff that would it would require.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Mel Velasquez \u003c/strong>[00:16:53] It’s really hard being a college student, first of all, and then a lot of them being first gen college students and also having to support their parents and their family.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Enrique Lima \u003c/strong>[00:17:05] It would require immense planning. So it would be a multi-year process, I would imagine, even after the approval.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Mel Velasquez \u003c/strong>[00:17:13] The new class he started teaching this past semester, he told me that it took a lot to just even make one class that’s like approved by the university. And from start to finish, it took over a year for him to get the syllabus approved and the coursework approved. So he’s like, this is not gonna happen for a few years at least.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Ericka Cruz Guevarra \u003c/strong>[00:17:40] And not to mention students graduating and moving on. And are people like Lesly feeling hopeful that they can actually make this happen?\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Mel Velasquez \u003c/strong>[00:17:51] Lesly told me that she’s just really passionate about Central American history.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Lesly Reyes Reyes \u003c/strong>[00:17:57] For me as a student that’s teaching the class, I hope to feel like I did something more. We’re all like planting our seed to hopefully get the fruit, which is the Central American Studies Department.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Mel Velasquez \u003c/strong>[00:18:09] There’s no exact timeline for like, this department could be created. It’s more about proving to the university that there is a demand for a program and a department.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Ericka Cruz Guevarra \u003c/strong>[00:18:27] Well, Mel, this all started back in 2017, but what do the students you talk with say about how they’re thinking about the importance of CAFE and even the Central American Studies Department in this particular moment that we’re in now?\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Mel Velasquez \u003c/strong>[00:18:44] The students that I spoke to and the former students as well, were telling me that it’s important to know the context, especially right now with the ICE raids that are happening. It’s important for people to be educated around why Central Americans are immigrating here anyways. The students I spoke too were telling me that there are conditions in Central America that are, they’re there because the United States had influence in it in a way, so that led them to immigrating over here so they could flee violence. They could flee political repression. So they want people to know that there’s a reason why Central Americans are here. And there’s also a reason why we should protect them.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Ericka Cruz Guevarra \u003c/strong>[00:19:38] Yeah, I mean, what’s your takeaway from your reporting, Mel? I know this came from a very personal place for you, and now that you’ve finished all your reporting. I mean what, what are you walking away with?\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Mel Velasquez \u003c/strong>[00:19:51] Um, I’m feeling very proud of my community, actually. I hope that people can also see that we’re beyond just immigration and drug violence and crime that’s happening. Even here in the Bay Area, that rhetoric has been going on for a long time, especially when it comes to drug trafficking. We’re more than that.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Ericka Cruz Guevarra \u003c/strong>[00:20:23] Well, Mel Velasquez, The Bay’s intern, thank you so much for joining me.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Mel Velasquez \u003c/strong>[00:20:28] It’s always a pleasure, Ericka.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[ad floatright]\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Ericka Cruz Guevarra \u003c/strong>[00:20:37] That was Mel Velasquez, The Bay’s beloved production intern. This 38-minute conversation with Mel was cut down and edited by Alan Montecillo. Mel produced this episode, scored it, and added all the tape. Extra production support by me and Jessica Kariisa.\u003c/p>\n\n",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003cp>Since Donald Trump’s first term in office, a UC Berkeley student group called Central Americans for Empowerment (CAFE) has been pushing for a Central American Studies department. For them, it would help raise visibility of Central Americans whose specific stories often get lost in broader conversations about Latinos and immigration in the U.S.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cem>\u003ci>Some members of the KQED podcast team are represented by The Screen Actors Guild, American Federation of Television and Radio Artists. San Francisco Northern California Local.\u003c/i>\u003c/em>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c!-- iframe plugin v.4.3 wordpress.org/plugins/iframe/ -->\u003cbr>\n\u003ciframe loading=\"lazy\" frameborder=\"0\" height=\"200\" scrolling=\"no\" src=\"https://playlist.megaphone.fm?e=KQINC4135996503&light=true\" width=\"100%\" class=\"iframe-class\">\u003c/iframe>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cem>This is a computer-generated transcript. While our team has reviewed it, there may be errors.\u003c/em>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Ericka Cruz Guevarra \u003c/strong>[00:01:09] Early in Donald Trump’s first term as president, caravans of Central Americans seeking asylum were arriving to Tijuana at the border with San Diego. Many groups here in the U.S. Made their way there to provide direct aid to the newly arrived migrants. One of them was a group of Central American students from UC Berkeley who’d started meeting as a way to build community and visibility around issues affecting Central Americans. On campus, they also had their own dreams of starting a Central American Studies Department at UC Berkeley.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Arlette Jacomé \u003c/strong>[00:01:54] There was just a lot around immigration and there was a lot around Central American migration and like the way Central Americans were being described in the public that really came to the forefront. And so I think it was very much perfect timing.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Ericka Cruz Guevarra \u003c/strong>[00:02:13] Cal students with roots in Honduras, Guatemala, Nicaragua, El Salvador, and Costa Rica wanted a closer study of their cultural backgrounds. For them, their specific stories often got lost in broader conversations about Latinos and even immigration in the U.S. And establishing a Central American Studies Department at UC Berkeley was one answer to that.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Lesly Reyes Reyes \u003c/strong>[00:02:42] Being Central American, we’re always seen as less than, just because our countries aren’t known as much. Being Salvadoran, everyone always assumed that, oh, you’re either affiliated with gang violence or they just assume a lot about the Civil War.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Ericka Cruz Guevarra \u003c/strong>[00:02:59] Today, the students fighting for a Central American Studies Department at UC Berkeley.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Mel Velasquez \u003c/strong>[00:03:18] According to the Census, the San Francisco-Oakland-Fremont metropolitan area has a population of around 145,000 immigrants from Central America. So that’s also like not including like first gens like me who were born here, but our parents are from Central America.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Ericka Cruz Guevarra \u003c/strong>[00:03:43] Mel Velasquez is the production intern for The Bay.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Mel Velasquez \u003c/strong>[00:03:48] Here in California, there’s a large population of Mexican Americans and Mexican immigrants. They make up a majority of the Latine community, which is natural, there are more people in Mexico than in Central America. But what these other sources I’ve talked to and other people I’ve talk to have spoken about is just how a lot of the conversations are very Mexico-centric. It’s very like common for people to just be like, oh yeah, okay, so you’re Latino, so, you’re Mexican. That’s something I’ve gotten like my entire life. I actually didn’t even know I was Central American until like kindergarten. I always thought I was Mexican because other kids would be like yeah. And I was like, yeah, that makes sense.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Ericka Cruz Guevarra \u003c/strong>[00:04:39] Yeah, but like, as you were saying, there’s many people from these countries have their own histories. And for, I guess, people who don’t know what are some big moments that led Central Americans to come here to the Bay Area.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Mel Velasquez \u003c/strong>[00:04:53] The second half of the 20th century, there were the civil wars in Central America, which led a lot of folks from these countries to flee here, into the Mission District in particular. In Honduras, there was the presidential coup in 2009 that also led a lot of people here. And also the civil wars that happened from around like the 60s to the 90s. They were Cold War fears from the United States that like, oh, we’re gonna have communist regime like in our backyard.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Ronald Reagan \u003c/strong>[00:05:34] Central America is America. It’s at our doorstep, and it’s become the stage for a bold attempt by the Soviet Union, Cuba, and Nicaragua to install communism by force throughout the hemisphere.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Ericka Cruz Guevarra \u003c/strong>[00:05:52] Well, I know you met someone whose family is from Central America to talk about some of these just sort of shared histories that you’re talking about. Tell me about Arlette Jacomé. Who is she and what’s her background?\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Mel Velasquez \u003c/strong>[00:06:07] I spoke with Arlette Jacomé and she was a student at UC Berkeley from around 2012 to 2017 and she’s Guatemalan.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Arlette Jacomé \u003c/strong>[00:06:19] Specifically tried to take Spanish classes and Latin American studies classes.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Mel Velasquez \u003c/strong>[00:06:24] I wanted to talk to Arlette because she was the co-founder of CAFE, which is Central Americans for Empowerment.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Ericka Cruz Guevarra \u003c/strong>[00:06:34] How does Arlette describe her first years at Cal?\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Mel Velasquez \u003c/strong>[00:06:38] So she felt like she was really alone.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Arlette Jacomé \u003c/strong>[00:06:42] I could spot Central Americans pretty easily and I was like you’re gonna be my friend but in terms of like structure or like organizationally or systemically speaking I was lonely.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Mel Velasquez \u003c/strong>[00:06:54] She was a first gen college student and she was looking for a group to be a part of that reflected her identity.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Arlette Jacomé \u003c/strong>[00:07:04] But I always wanted more. I always want more Central American community. And in my heart of hearts, since probably freshman year, I was like, if we had a Central American group, I would join and I wish I could do that.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Mel Velasquez \u003c/strong>[00:07:17] And there’s like other clubs, Latine affinity groups like MECHA, which is like a nationwide organization. And then there’s smaller clubs here and there that have specific needs for Latino students, but that she didn’t really identify with. And so she wanted to start CAFE, which is Central Americans for Empowerment.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Ericka Cruz Guevarra \u003c/strong>[00:07:42] I mean, this is 2016, 2017. What is the context around this time and what was happening in the news around immigration in particular as Arlette and other students were forming CAFE?\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Mel Velasquez \u003c/strong>[00:07:56] Yeah, so around this time was the first Trump administration. So this was the beginning of the anti-immigration rhetoric about building a border wall and a lot of racist comments about Mexicans in general and also, like, Central Americans lumped in there as well. So, there was a lot of Central Americans coming into the United States during this time as well and more specifically the Honduran caravans that were coming here. And they were at the San Diego-Tijuana border, the U.S.-Mexico border.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>CNN reporter \u003c/strong>[00:08:42] I want to show you exactly what’s happening behind me. You can see on this side, there are quite a few of people from the caravan that has arrived here to the US-Mexico border. They sort of have.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Mel Velasquez \u003c/strong>[00:08:55] So the cafe wasn’t built around that, those issues specifically, but it just happened to be that this was the political climate that CAFE was started in.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Arlette Jacomé \u003c/strong>[00:09:06] At the time, the media was just disparaging Central Americans and the caravans. There weren’t a lot of spaces for Central Americans in general to really like talk about that in a way that was like personal. Cause for us, it’s personal, right?\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Mel Velasquez \u003c/strong>[00:09:25] They did a lot of direct aid for the Honduran caravan at the border. Some students collected like clothes and money and toiletries and things that anybody can need. They went down south to Tijuana and they were talking to the women of the caravan and just giving them grooming services and helping them just feel normal, feel like a person. Another big goal of theirs was to create a Central American Studies Department. It doesn’t exist at Berkeley. Actually, no university in the Bay Area has a Central American Studies department. They have classes, but the first program for Central American Studies was created at Cal State Northridge. In the beginning, it was just like an idea. It was a dream. They didn’t actually think like when they were there that it would happen because… It’s a long process to create a department at a university. Other ethnicities and races have their own departments as well. And they have like the faculty and staff to educate other folks about things like Chicanx studies, and which is a very popular and nationwide program and that a lot of different universities have. So these students are like, okay, well, this exists somewhere. It exists at Cal State Northridge. Why can’t we have it over here? They want academics to teach Central American history, which is what they feel is very intertwined with U.S. History. The folks I talked to, they told me that they didn’t learn any of this when they were in school, and they were very interested in it.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Arlette Jacomé \u003c/strong>[00:11:25] Central American studies is more than just students who are Central American, who wanna identify within this higher ed space. It’s about understanding a history that is very American because the U.S. Has done so much with their imperialistic endeavors that has impacted Central Americans to where we’re here and now we have this interconnected history.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Ericka Cruz Guevarra \u003c/strong>[00:11:52] Coming up, how CAFE students today are trying to move the needle on a Central American Studies Department. Stay with us.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Ericka Cruz Guevarra \u003c/strong>[00:13:09] So CAFE started around the beginning of President Trump’s first term. It’s now 2025. How has it grown? Or changed?\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Mel Velasquez \u003c/strong>[00:13:18] So it’s definitely gone through some ebbs and flows throughout the years, and especially during COVID. But now, in 2025, there’s more students who are active in organizing around a Central American Studies department.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Lesly Reyes Reyes \u003c/strong>[00:13:35] We’re fighting for a department that’s just very important to us, but then also to the community.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Mel Velasquez \u003c/strong>[00:13:43] I talked to Lesly Reyes Reyes. She’s going to be a sophomore at Berkeley. She’s a pre-med major. She was really ambitious right at orientation.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Lesly Reyes Reyes \u003c/strong>[00:13:55] And I see that they posted, oh, we’re having a board application. So I was like, should I just go for it? I was, like, I might regret if I don’t. So I went ahead and like applied for board.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Mel Velasquez \u003c/strong>[00:14:06] Now, she is working on a class about Central American migration and identity.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Lesly Reyes Reyes \u003c/strong>[00:14:14] We’re going to start with a timeline from the 1930s all the way to the present. And then later on, we’re focusing on identifying the different murals that are related to Central American diaspora in the Mission District.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Mel Velasquez \u003c/strong>[00:14:27] There’s this thing at Berkeley called DeCal. So it’s basically a student-led class and there’s a faculty advisor, but it’s everything that a traditional class has, a syllabus, coursework, readings, lectures, and you can get units for them. She already made the syllabus. Now she’s working on the lectures and the homework and the readings. And so she told me that she wants this. Class to like encourage people of all backgrounds to join, not just Central American students.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Lesly Reyes Reyes \u003c/strong>[00:15:05] Someone that’s not Central American. I would just want them to feel more educated and kind of feel like, not pity that’s definitely not something I want someone to feel not pity for us, but kind of more like whoa like you guys are strong like you did that and like y’all are still fighting for your identities here in like the US\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Ericka Cruz Guevarra \u003c/strong>[00:15:29] Why is doing this an important piece of the puzzle to eventually establishing a Central American Studies Department?\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Mel Velasquez \u003c/strong>[00:15:38] I talked to Professor Enrique Lima. He is a continuing lecturer at Berkeley and he teaches two of the Central American classes at Berkeley. He was telling me that the university cares about enrollment.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Enrique Lima \u003c/strong>[00:15:55] My main concern for them was the university cares about numbers. The university is at some level an institution that cares about money.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Mel Velasquez \u003c/strong>[00:16:08] And if the students can prove that they have the numbers in this class, so if they’re consistent with teaching the DeCal, maybe if that has demand, there can be another one, and hopefully it’ll snowball into something like that.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Ericka Cruz Guevarra \u003c/strong>[00:16:28] What does Professor Lima think about CAFE’s goal of establishing a Central American Studies Department?\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Mel Velasquez \u003c/strong>[00:16:37] Yeah, he’s excited about the idea, but he’s also a little skeptical about it as well.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Enrique Lima \u003c/strong>[00:16:45] It’s a lot of work. It’s not just where would it be housed, all the staff that would it would require.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Mel Velasquez \u003c/strong>[00:16:53] It’s really hard being a college student, first of all, and then a lot of them being first gen college students and also having to support their parents and their family.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Enrique Lima \u003c/strong>[00:17:05] It would require immense planning. So it would be a multi-year process, I would imagine, even after the approval.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Mel Velasquez \u003c/strong>[00:17:13] The new class he started teaching this past semester, he told me that it took a lot to just even make one class that’s like approved by the university. And from start to finish, it took over a year for him to get the syllabus approved and the coursework approved. So he’s like, this is not gonna happen for a few years at least.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Ericka Cruz Guevarra \u003c/strong>[00:17:40] And not to mention students graduating and moving on. And are people like Lesly feeling hopeful that they can actually make this happen?\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Mel Velasquez \u003c/strong>[00:17:51] Lesly told me that she’s just really passionate about Central American history.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Lesly Reyes Reyes \u003c/strong>[00:17:57] For me as a student that’s teaching the class, I hope to feel like I did something more. We’re all like planting our seed to hopefully get the fruit, which is the Central American Studies Department.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Mel Velasquez \u003c/strong>[00:18:09] There’s no exact timeline for like, this department could be created. It’s more about proving to the university that there is a demand for a program and a department.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Ericka Cruz Guevarra \u003c/strong>[00:18:27] Well, Mel, this all started back in 2017, but what do the students you talk with say about how they’re thinking about the importance of CAFE and even the Central American Studies Department in this particular moment that we’re in now?\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Mel Velasquez \u003c/strong>[00:18:44] The students that I spoke to and the former students as well, were telling me that it’s important to know the context, especially right now with the ICE raids that are happening. It’s important for people to be educated around why Central Americans are immigrating here anyways. The students I spoke too were telling me that there are conditions in Central America that are, they’re there because the United States had influence in it in a way, so that led them to immigrating over here so they could flee violence. They could flee political repression. So they want people to know that there’s a reason why Central Americans are here. And there’s also a reason why we should protect them.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Ericka Cruz Guevarra \u003c/strong>[00:19:38] Yeah, I mean, what’s your takeaway from your reporting, Mel? I know this came from a very personal place for you, and now that you’ve finished all your reporting. I mean what, what are you walking away with?\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Mel Velasquez \u003c/strong>[00:19:51] Um, I’m feeling very proud of my community, actually. I hope that people can also see that we’re beyond just immigration and drug violence and crime that’s happening. Even here in the Bay Area, that rhetoric has been going on for a long time, especially when it comes to drug trafficking. We’re more than that.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Ericka Cruz Guevarra \u003c/strong>[00:20:23] Well, Mel Velasquez, The Bay’s intern, thank you so much for joining me.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Mel Velasquez \u003c/strong>[00:20:28] It’s always a pleasure, Ericka.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Ericka Cruz Guevarra \u003c/strong>[00:20:37] That was Mel Velasquez, The Bay’s beloved production intern. This 38-minute conversation with Mel was cut down and edited by Alan Montecillo. Mel produced this episode, scored it, and added all the tape. Extra production support by me and Jessica Kariisa.\u003c/p>\n\n\u003c/div>\u003c/p>",
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"title": "‘A Butterfly With My Wings Cut Off’: A Transgender Asylum Seeker’s Quest to Come to California",
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"headTitle": "‘A Butterfly With My Wings Cut Off’: A Transgender Asylum Seeker’s Quest to Come to California | KQED",
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"content": "\u003cp>\u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/news/11852044/una-mariposa-con-las-alas-rotas-la-busqueda-de-una-solicitante-de-asilo-transgenera-para-llegar-a-california\">\u003cem>Leer en español\u003c/em>\u003c/a>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cem>Since \u003ca href=\"https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/the-california-report-magazine/id1314750545?mt=2\">The California Report Magazine\u003c/a> first aired this documentary in December 2020, dozens of listeners reached out to help Luna Guzmán with messages of encouragement and support. In May, 2021, Luna was \u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/news/11876583/living-my-dream-after-years-transgender-asylum-seeker-finally-makes-it-to-the-us\">finally able to make it to the US\u003c/a>, where she is now waiting for another chance to go before an immigration judge and ask for protection.\u003c/em>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[dropcap]W[/dropcap]hen she turned 15, like so many girls in her town in Guatemala, Luna Guzmán celebrated with a quinceañera.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“My friend lent me the dress because she saw the way I used to cry every time we passed the dress shop on the way to school, with all those beautiful dresses,” she said in Spanish. “I would just press my hand up against the glass and stare at them for a long time.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The dress she borrowed was turquoise, with a long skirt. She took off her tennies, put on heels and a tiara, and danced with her friends.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>There was a cake, bottles of champagne and chambelanes, boys who dressed up in suits to escort her into the secret party at a friend’s house. No one was there from Luna’s family, because they couldn’t fathom her as a transgender girl.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[pullquote size=\"medium\" align=\"right\" citation=\"Luna Guzmán\"]‘The teacher would always ask my mom, ‘Listen, can’t you change your son? Can you take him to a psychologist? A psychiatrist? It’s making my school look bad.’[/pullquote]Moments from that birthday party still linger in Luna’s memory as a time when she truly felt delight and freedom. It was something to be savored again and again as the next decade began to unfold, even as she put back on her soccer jerseys and tried to look like the boy she knew she wasn’t inside. Even as she dealt with brutal violence and decided to take a tremendous risk and leave everything behind in Guatemala to try to find a life in California. The memories were one place in the world where she could imagine being safe, being herself.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>We first met Luna two years ago at a migrant shelter in Tijuana and have stayed in touch with her as she’s journeyed across the border, spent months in U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement detention, and sought shelter in Mexico. We’ve spent weeks frantically trying to reach her in an intensive care unit, after she left a voice message that she had been diagnosed with a severe case of COVID-19. “Thank you for telling my story,” she rasped through labored breaths, her voice barely recognizable. “If I die, I hope that one day people will remember something about me.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8-aYksXNNUA\u003c/p>\n\u003ch3>\u003cstrong>‘Can’t You Change Your Son?’\u003c/strong>\u003c/h3>\n\u003cp>Luna grew up on the outskirts of a small city in Central Guatemala, in a house cobbled together from sticks and newspaper. Her mom sold french fries from a cart, and Luna helped care for her three siblings, including a brother with developmental disabilities. Her dad wasn’t part of her life.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>She said she was a voracious reader, spending hours in the town library. At school she would play dress up with the other girls. Luna would transform into a butterfly, her wings made from pieces of cardboard she scavenged on the street.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“The teacher would always ask my mom, ‘Listen, can’t you change your son? Can you take him to a psychologist? A psychiatrist? It’s making my school look bad,’ ” she recalled.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[ad fullwidth]\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Luna said her mom defended her at first. When she came out as gay at age 14, her mom gave a toast with some agua de jamaica. But as Luna got older, she said her mom disapproved of the dresses and the heels. Her son, dressing like a woman? For her, that went against nature. So Luna put back on the soccer jerseys and shorts.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“The hurtful things she said to me, I understand them better now,” said Luna. “She just wanted to protect me.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_11849344\" class=\"wp-caption alignnone\" style=\"max-width: 800px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-medium wp-image-11849344\" src=\"https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/10/2020/12/RS45761__MG_2008_crop-qut_v2-800x613.jpg\" alt=\"Luna Guzmán has spent most of her life fighting to be accepted as a transgender woman. She said she has often experienced brutal violence when she expresses her true gender identity as a woman.\" width=\"800\" height=\"613\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2020/12/RS45761__MG_2008_crop-qut_v2-800x613.jpg 800w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2020/12/RS45761__MG_2008_crop-qut_v2-1020x781.jpg 1020w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2020/12/RS45761__MG_2008_crop-qut_v2-160x123.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2020/12/RS45761__MG_2008_crop-qut_v2-1536x1177.jpg 1536w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2020/12/RS45761__MG_2008_crop-qut_v2.jpg 1856w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 800px) 100vw, 800px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Luna Guzmán has spent most of her life fighting to be accepted as a transgender woman. She said she has often experienced brutal violence when she expresses her true gender identity as a woman. \u003ccite>(Erin Siegal McIntyre)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>October 2007\u003c/strong>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>When Luna was 13, just on the cusp of adolescence, she said she was raped by an older man who was a neighbor.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“I would ask, why me? Tell me — if anyone is up there — explain it to me,” she sighed. “I still haven’t gotten an answer to this day.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Soon after, Luna said she was trafficked into prostitution. Some powerful men in her town forced her into a trafficking ring. The clients? Older men who would pay hundreds of U.S. dollars to sleep with young boys and transgender girls.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003ca href=\"https://www.reuters.com/article/us-guatemala-humantrafficking/guatemala-closes-its-eyes-to-rampant-child-sex-trafficking-u-n-idUSKCN0YU29V\">Sex trafficking is rampant in Guatemala\u003c/a>, and the United Nations has denounced the shocking number of children forced into trafficking rings because of poverty.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>But there was no one to help. The traffickers, Luna said, had connections with the police and top public officials in town. “If anyone tried to denounce them or file a complaint, they’d throw it in the trash,” she said.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Many of the kids trafficked in the ring, she said, were infected with sexually transmitted diseases. When she was 16, Luna said she found out she was HIV-positive. Harassment from people in town, who had already thrown rocks at her and told her to stay away from their children, intensified. Once, she remembered, some people beat her up so badly they broke her collarbone, telling her they wanted her to behave like a “real man.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“My town is so small, there was no information about sexual orientation or HIV,” Luna said. “No information about anything. It’s so close-minded.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>When she turned 19, she said, she was still occasionally forced into sex work. But as she reached adulthood, she started to take some small steps to wrest back control of her life. She signed up for a training course to become a volunteer firefighter.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_11849342\" class=\"wp-caption alignnone\" style=\"max-width: 800px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-medium wp-image-11849342\" src=\"https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/10/2020/12/IMG_0768_v3-800x450.jpg\" alt=\"Luna Guzmán worked as a fire fighter in her home town. She said she left the department after experiencing harassment and homophobic threats.\" width=\"800\" height=\"450\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2020/12/IMG_0768_v3-800x450.jpg 800w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2020/12/IMG_0768_v3-1020x574.jpg 1020w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2020/12/IMG_0768_v3-160x90.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2020/12/IMG_0768_v3.jpg 1500w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 800px) 100vw, 800px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Luna Guzmán worked as a firefighter in her hometown. She said she left the department after experiencing harassment and homophobic threats. \u003ccite>(Cortesía de Luna Guzmán )\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>November 2014\u003c/strong>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Luna graduated from the firefighting program. She felt powerful rescuing people from car accidents and hosing down burning buildings.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>But then, she said, the other firefighters found out she was HIV-positive, and began taunting her with homophobic slurs.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>She dreamed about a way out and set her sights on California. She’d seen videos of San Francisco’s massive pride parade. She knew in California she couldn’t be fired or evicted for being transgender, would have the right to get an ID in the name she wants to use, and use the restroom that matches her gender identity. She also hoped it was a place where she could earn enough money to pay for her transition.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>January 2017 \u003c/strong>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Luna left her family, the fire department, the neighbors, the pimps. She was 22 years old.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>She leaped onto that famous train migrants call \u003ca href=\"https://www.npr.org/sections/parallels/2014/06/05/318905712/riding-the-beast-across-mexico-to-the-u-s-border\">La Bestia\u003c/a>, or “the beast,” which travels north from Mexico’s southern border. She didn’t wear dresses on the journey. As she’s done for most of her life, she kept her hair short and wore men’s T-shirts and shorts, for safety.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_11849343\" class=\"wp-caption alignnone\" style=\"max-width: 694px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-11849343\" src=\"https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/10/2020/12/LUNA-TRAIN-2019-03-30-12-57-30_cropped_v2.jpg\" alt=\"Luna Guzmán rides a train heading from Guatemala through Mexico in 2017. She traveled with several other LGBTQ migrants and said that at one point they were attacked by men armed with machetes. \" width=\"694\" height=\"390\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2020/12/LUNA-TRAIN-2019-03-30-12-57-30_cropped_v2.jpg 694w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2020/12/LUNA-TRAIN-2019-03-30-12-57-30_cropped_v2-160x90.jpg 160w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 694px) 100vw, 694px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Luna Guzmán rides a train heading from Guatemala through Mexico in 2017. She traveled with several other LGBTQ migrants and said that at one point they were attacked by men armed with machetes. \u003ccite>(Cortesía de Luna Guzmán)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003ch3>\u003cstrong>\u003cstrong>Crossing the Border But Not Finding Safety \u003c/strong> \u003c/strong>\u003c/h3>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>August 2017\u003c/strong>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>When Luna reached the U.S.-Mexico border crossing at Otay Mesa near San Diego, she told an officer she was running away from homophobic violence in Guatemala and was requesting asylum. But her hopes that she would feel protected as soon as she crossed into the U.S. vanished.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“They took me into some offices. About 30 minutes later, they arrested me. Put chains on my hands, my feet, my waist,” she recalled. “They treat you like a criminal, just for asking for help. It feels horrible, like you’re nothing.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Border officials don’t decide on asylum requests — that happens later — but they are responsible for the transfer of detainees to ICE custody, where they’ll eventually speak with an asylum officer. However, border officials didn’t check the box on Luna’s intake form indicating that she identified as LGBT, nor the box indicating that she could be at increased risk of sexual abuse in detention.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_11846822\" class=\"wp-caption alignnone\" style=\"max-width: 800px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-medium wp-image-11846822\" src=\"https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/10/2020/11/Detainee-Assess-Form-screen-shot-800x490.png\" alt=\"U.S. Customs and Border Patrol “Detainee Assessment” form dated Aug. 9, 2017. Although Luna Guzmán clearly told officials she feared homophobic violence, they did not check the box noting that she identified as LGBTQ. \" width=\"800\" height=\"490\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2020/11/Detainee-Assess-Form-screen-shot-800x490.png 800w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2020/11/Detainee-Assess-Form-screen-shot-1020x624.png 1020w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2020/11/Detainee-Assess-Form-screen-shot-160x98.png 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2020/11/Detainee-Assess-Form-screen-shot.png 1428w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 800px) 100vw, 800px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">U.S. Customs and Border Protection ‘Detainee Assessment’ form dated Aug. 9, 2017. Although Luna Guzmán clearly told officials she feared homophobic violence, they did not check the box noting that she identified as LGBTQ. \u003ccite>(Solicitud de información bajo la Ley por la Libertad de la Información)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>That’s where things started to go wrong for her. ICE eventually assigned Luna a bed in a crowded men’s unit at the Otay Mesa Detention Center.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Ten days after she arrived at the border asking for help, an asylum officer with U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services conducted a “credible fear” interview. That’s when Luna told her she also dressed as a woman at times. The officer found her story credible.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>A few weeks later, a transgender Latina organization based near Los Angeles called \u003ca href=\"https://www.facebook.com/LasCrisantemas/?ref=page_internal\">Las Crisantemas\u003c/a> sent a letter of support to the immigration court identifying Luna as a trans woman.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>But Luna was never moved to a special detention unit for transgender women, despite the fact that in 2015 ICE had agreed to \u003ca href=\"https://www.ice.gov/news/releases/ice-issues-new-guidance-care-transgender-individuals-custody\">improve standards for transgender detainees\u003c/a>, including access to separate detention units away from the general population.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[pullquote size=\"medium\" align=\"right\" citation=\"Luna Guzmán\"]‘They treat you like a criminal, just for asking for help. It feels horrible, like you’re nothing.’[/pullquote]\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“They did not put her into the protective custody that is required by their own standards,” said Allegra Love, an attorney with the \u003ca href=\"http://www.santafedreamersproject.org/transdetention\">Santa Fe Dreamers Project\u003c/a>, which has represented hundreds of transgender women in detention over the last few years. She was never Luna’s lawyer, but we asked her to review Luna’s case after KQED sued ICE to obtain her immigration records.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“If someone expresses to them, ‘Hey, look, I am trans, I have gender dysphoria. I am not the gender you think I am,’ then the government has this responsibility acknowledged by their own hand to take that seriously and protect people from heightened danger,” said Love.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>But Luna would spend months in the men’s unit before her asylum case could be fully heard — months when she said she was repeatedly harassed and belittled by the other detainees.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_11846829\" class=\"wp-caption alignnone\" style=\"max-width: 800px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-medium wp-image-11846829\" src=\"https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/10/2020/11/RS45759__MG_0162-qut-800x533.jpg\" alt=\"Layers of security fencing at Otay Mesa immigration Detention Facility just east of San Diego, where Luna Guzmán was held for eight months while waiting to present her asylum claim.\" width=\"800\" height=\"533\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2020/11/RS45759__MG_0162-qut-800x533.jpg 800w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2020/11/RS45759__MG_0162-qut-1020x680.jpg 1020w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2020/11/RS45759__MG_0162-qut-160x107.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2020/11/RS45759__MG_0162-qut-1536x1024.jpg 1536w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2020/11/RS45759__MG_0162-qut.jpg 1920w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 800px) 100vw, 800px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Layers of security fencing at Otay Mesa Detention Center just east of San Diego, where Luna Guzmán was held for eight months while waiting to present her asylum claim. \u003ccite>(Erin Siegal McIntyre)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003ch3>\u003cstrong>Backlogged Immigration Court, Long Months in Detention\u003c/strong>\u003c/h3>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>November 2017\u003c/strong>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Luna appeared before immigration Judge Olga Attia, appointed to the immigration court in 2017 by former Attorney General Jeff Sessions. Luna was assigned an interpreter, but no lawyer. If she had wanted one, she would have had to find and pay for one herself.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>In the audio recordings of her hearings at the immigration court, Luna told the judge she was worried about being detained for so long.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“I don’t always get the medicine I need for my chronic condition [HIV],” she said.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“Unfortunately, I don’t have jurisdiction over such matters,” Attia told her. “You need to bring this to the attention of the detention officers.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>January 2018\u003c/strong>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Luna was in detention for five months before she was able to officially present her asylum application to Judge Attia. Then the judge informed her there were no available appointments to hear the merits of her case for another five months.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>February 2018\u003c/strong>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>After six months in detention, Luna was eligible to get out on bond. ICE attorneys didn’t object as she had no criminal history. The judge set the bond at $4,500, but like many asylum seekers, she had no way to pay that kind of money.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Luna pleaded with the judge. “It’s hurting me, psychologically,” she said. “I’ve never been locked up, your honor.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>March 2018\u003c/strong>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Unable to tolerate being in detention in a men’s unit any longer, Luna did something she never expected to do. She gave up on her asylum case and asked to be deported right away.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“It’s been eight months since I was detained at the detention center, your honor,” she said through an interpreter. “I feel alone. I don’t have the words to explain to you.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Even as Attia accepted the withdrawal of Luna’s asylum application, it wasn’t clear that the judge understood that Luna was transgender. Even after the interpreter explained that Luna was referring to herself in the feminine pronoun, Attia kept calling Luna “sir.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“I can only imagine the loss of hope that someone experiences when they’re fleeing a country where the reason their life is in danger is because their institutions refuse to acknowledge who they are,” said Love, the attorney who has represented dozens of transgender detainees from Central America. “Then to arrive with a hopeful feeling in a place where they think they are going to have a different treatment, and then to have law enforcement officers and judges — officers of the court — immediately reject them as well.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Even if Luna had decided to stay in detention and pursue her asylum claim, the odds were against her, especially without a lawyer. During the last year of the Obama administration, 55% of all asylum applications were denied. Under the Trump administration, those numbers jumped to a record high of 72% in 2020, according to data from \u003ca href=\"https://trac.syr.edu/whatsnew/email.201028.html\">Syracuse University’s TRAC project\u003c/a>.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>For asylum seekers from Guatemala, the rate is even higher: 85.8% of those applications are denied.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>April 2018\u003c/strong>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>On the plane ICE chartered to transport Luna and other detainees back to Guatemala, she recalled, she had a panic attack, shaking so badly she could barely walk onto the tarmac when she landed in Guatemala City.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>She said she went to stay with her sister, who had married an evangelical Christian. After a few days, however, she said her sister gave her some money and asked her to leave.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“You don’t have a home with me as a sister,” Luna remembered her saying. “Only as a brother.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>November 2018\u003c/strong>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Luna had left Guatemala and had gradually made her way back to the U.S.-Mexico border, hoping to find her way to California again. We met Luna while she was staying at \u003ca href=\"https://www.facebook.com/CasadelMigranteTijuana/\">Casa del Migrante\u003c/a>, a migrant shelter in Tijuana.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[pullquote size=\"medium\" align=\"right\" citation=\"Luna Guzmán\"]‘I am a transgender woman. I’m not going to live dressed as a boy my whole life. One day soon I want everyone who knows me to say, “Luna made it. She fought for her dreams and they came true.”‘[/pullquote]\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>She said she was trying to make it as a dishwasher in a restaurant where the owner kept making homophobic comments. She was also scrambling to find a clinic to get her HIV medication without a Mexican ID.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The soles of her tennis shoes were wearing thin, and she was wearing a soccer jersey, her hair buzzed short.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“I am a transgender woman. I’m not going to live dressed as a boy my whole life,” Luna told us. “One day soon I want everyone who knows me to say, ‘Luna made it. She fought for her dreams and they came true.’ ”\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_11846832\" class=\"wp-caption alignnone\" style=\"max-width: 800px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-medium wp-image-11846832\" src=\"https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/10/2020/11/RS45762__MG_2087-qut-800x533.jpg\" alt=\"Luna Guzmán stands in front of a mural in Tijuana. As a child, she often dressed up as a butterfly. In detention, she said she felt like a “butterfly with its wings cut off.”\" width=\"800\" height=\"533\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2020/11/RS45762__MG_2087-qut-800x533.jpg 800w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2020/11/RS45762__MG_2087-qut-1020x680.jpg 1020w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2020/11/RS45762__MG_2087-qut-160x107.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2020/11/RS45762__MG_2087-qut-1536x1024.jpg 1536w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2020/11/RS45762__MG_2087-qut.jpg 1920w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 800px) 100vw, 800px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Luna Guzmán stands in front of a mural in Tijuana. As a child, she often dressed up as a butterfly. In detention, she said she felt like a “butterfly with its wings cut off.” \u003ccite>(Erin Siegal McIntyre)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>January 2019\u003c/strong>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>A month later, Luna messaged via WhatsApp to say she knew her dream of coming to California was probably over, because she had given up her asylum case the year before.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>But then, a few weeks later, she sent a video of herself standing someplace windy, with the border wall far behind her.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“Look!” she exclaimed. “I crossed! I’ll see you in San Francisco, by the Golden Gate bridge, for a coffee.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Then the WhatsApp feed went quiet for weeks.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>February 2019\u003c/strong>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Finally, we got a collect call from Otay Mesa Detention Center. Over the scratchy phone line, Luna said she was in the same cell and the same bed where she had stayed the year before.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“I feel like a butterfly who’s had her wings cut off,” she said.\u003c/p>\n\u003ch3>\u003cstrong>‘I’ve Been a Prisoner in My Own Body, Now I’m a Prisoner Here’\u003c/strong>\u003c/h3>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>March 12, 2019\u003c/strong>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>After Luna had been detained for about six weeks, ICE granted us permission to interview her in person at Otay Mesa.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>We followed a guard to a waiting room with other families. A sign above one guard’s gray metal desk proclaimed “Hope is the anchor for the soul. Be grateful.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>When they called our names, we walked down past a heavy door, to where Luna sat in a tiny room. She wore blue crocs, brown socks and a blue uniform with “detainee” emblazoned on the back in white letters.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_11846827\" class=\"wp-caption alignnone\" style=\"max-width: 800px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-medium wp-image-11846827\" src=\"https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/10/2020/11/RS45757__MG_0143-qut-800x533.jpg\" alt=\"The California Report’s Sasha Khokha interviews Luna Guzmán inside Otay Mesa Detention Center in March 2019. \" width=\"800\" height=\"533\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2020/11/RS45757__MG_0143-qut-800x533.jpg 800w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2020/11/RS45757__MG_0143-qut-1020x680.jpg 1020w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2020/11/RS45757__MG_0143-qut-160x107.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2020/11/RS45757__MG_0143-qut-1536x1024.jpg 1536w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2020/11/RS45757__MG_0143-qut.jpg 1920w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 800px) 100vw, 800px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">The California Report’s Sasha Khokha interviews Luna Guzmán inside Otay Mesa Detention Center in March 2019. \u003ccite>(Erin Siegal McIntyre.)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>She looked gaunt and exhausted, but her eyes were still bright. Her hair was shorn super-short. She had to cut it all off after a bully hacked off a chunk of it with a razor, she said.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“He told me he couldn’t stand homosexuals and whipped out the razor,” she said. “He told me if I complained to the guards, it would be worse.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Luna said that happened at the Metropolitan Correctional Facility, a federal jail in San Diego, where she had been held for about a week after Border Patrol agents picked her up. She was charged there with the federal crime of illegally reentering the U.S., after President Trump ramped up prosecutions under a “zero tolerance” policy.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>But the sexual harassment at the ICE detention facility, she said, was even worse.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“Some people here, they touch your butt, your breasts, they look at you when you’re taking a shower,” she said. “They flash us. I don’t want to be here anymore. I know if I complain they won’t listen to me.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Luna told us she couldn’t afford to buy shampoo or snacks from the detention center commissary. She said other inmates offered to buy them for her, in exchange for sexual favors.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“I’m not going to do something I don’t want to do for a cup of soup that costs 60 cents,” she said. “I’m not going to have sex with anyone here. There’s discrimination on the outside. But here, it’s a different world. It’s worse. … You have nowhere to go to get away from it. You’re trapped.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>A \u003ca href=\"https://www.americanprogress.org/issues/lgbtq-rights/news/2018/05/30/451294/ices-rejection-rules-placing-lgbt-immigrants-severe-risk-sexual-abuse/\">2018 study \u003c/a>found that LGBT immigrants are nearly 100 times more likely to be sexually harassed or assaulted in ICE detention.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“I’ve been a prisoner in my own body, I’m now a prisoner here,” Luna said.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>She told us she didn’t want to cry in front of us. She wanted to be the strong person who had impressed us with her courage and tenacity when we met her in Tijuana four months earlier.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>But after our interview, we peeked back through a window of the tiny room. Her head was on the table, and she was sobbing.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_11846828\" class=\"wp-caption alignnone\" style=\"max-width: 800px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-medium wp-image-11846828\" src=\"https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/10/2020/11/RS45758__MG_0156-qut-800x533.jpg\" alt=\"Luna Guzmán puts her head down and cries after her interview with reporters Sasha Khokha and Erin Siegal McIntyre. \" width=\"800\" height=\"533\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2020/11/RS45758__MG_0156-qut-800x533.jpg 800w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2020/11/RS45758__MG_0156-qut-1020x680.jpg 1020w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2020/11/RS45758__MG_0156-qut-160x107.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2020/11/RS45758__MG_0156-qut-1536x1024.jpg 1536w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2020/11/RS45758__MG_0156-qut.jpg 1920w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 800px) 100vw, 800px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Luna Guzmán puts her head down and cries after her interview with reporters Sasha Khokha and Erin Siegal McIntyre. \u003ccite>(Erin Siegal McIntyre. )\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>Luna’s second stint in detention only lasted a couple months. ICE moved to deport her as soon as possible: She had re-entered the U.S. by climbing the border fence and violated the five-year bar on re-entry imposed on her when she was deported the first time. Now, she was barred from returning to the U.S. for 20 years.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>This was her second time in detention, and she still had no lawyer. No one to tell her about an alternative to asylum — something called “\u003ca href=\"https://www.justia.com/lgbtq/immigration/transgender-rights/\">withholding of removal,\u003c/a>” which has allowed some transgender women from Central America to stay in the U.S.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“If she had partnered with a skilled asylum lawyer, we would be having a really different conversation right now about her,” said Love. “We might be talking about her now in 2020, enrolling in community college or, you know, getting her first apartment or, in fact, getting her legal permanent residence in the United States and having a green card. But instead, she was not provided with the due process that she was owed.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp> \u003c/p>\n\u003ch3>\u003cstrong>‘It’s Not Safe For You To Stay in Guatemala’\u003c/strong>\u003c/h3>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>March 27, 2019\u003c/strong>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Luna was deported a second time to Guatemala City. KQED hired a film crew to meet her when she got off the plane.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>She counted out four U.S. dollar bills from a plastic bag marked “personal property” — money she said she earned working in the laundry at the detention center. She brushed her hand over her face, as if to make it all go away.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Then she headed to \u003ca href=\"https://asociacionlambda.com/\">Asociación Lambda\u003c/a>, an LGBT organization in Guatemala City that helps deportees, but after hearing her story, an intake worker told Luna it was unsafe for her to stay in Guatemala.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“Your profile is very high risk,” he said.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>He didn’t need to remind her about the \u003ca href=\"https://www.pri.org/stories/2020-02-13/ice-deported-trans-asylum-seeker-she-was-killed-el-salvador\">trans women who’ve been murdered\u003c/a> recently after being deported back to Central America. He also said he worried the traffickers from her hometown might have connections in Guatemala City and could track her down.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>He arranged for a safe house in a secret location, but Luna decided to leave after just one night there. She refused to feel locked up again.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>By now we’d been reporting on Luna’s story for five months. Some transgender California Report listeners in Modesto who heard one of the stories even reached out to her and sent her $80, money that helped her get out of Guatemala again and start another journey back to the border. They also put together a drag performance that they dedicated to her.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>https://www.youtube.com/embed/XkR9vHtM9T8\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>April-July 2019\u003c/strong>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>After a few more months, Luna found her way out of Guatemala and back to Mexico. She applied for a humanitarian visa to stay temporarily and found a job making tortillas in a restaurant in Tapachula. She met some new friends, other transgender migrants.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Soon, emboldened by her new friends, she decided to dress as a woman again, for dinner with them at a local cafe.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Then she called at 6 a.m. the next morning, crying. She said she had been raped by five armed men, who abducted her while she was waiting alone for a taxi after dinner. She said they beat her, kicking her in the kidneys, where she was recovering from a recent infection.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“Why is that every time I show the person I really am, does it go so wrong?” she sobbed. “Why is life so hard?”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>She said she was too afraid to file a complaint with the Mexican police, that they would probably do nothing but laugh at her and say homophobic things. She sent me a Facebook post about the \u003ca href=\"https://www.diariodelsur.com.mx/local/gobierno-de-chiapas-complice-en-crimenes-de-odio-y-violencia-activistas-3949418.html\">death of a gay activist, Juan Ruiz Nicolas\u003c/a>, who was assassinated in Tapachula, the town where she was staying near the Guatemala border.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[pullquote size=\"small\" align=\"right\" citation=\"Allegra Love, attorney with Santa Fe Dreamers Project\"]‘If [Luna] had partnered with a skilled asylum lawyer, we would be having a really different conversation right now about her. We might be talking about her now in 2020, enrolling in community college … getting her first apartment or, in fact, getting her legal permanent residence in the United States.’[/pullquote]\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Because she didn’t report the rape to anyone, it’s hard to confirm that Luna was assaulted. This is part of the paradox for asylum seekers. They’re expected to document and prove the horrible things that have happened to them, but all too often, the act of reporting these abuses could put them in more danger.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Of course, as journalists, we’ve done our best to vet her story. KQED even sued the Department of Homeland Security to obtain Luna’s records. But when it comes to what happened to Luna in Guatemala or Mexico, there’s no way to prove the trafficking and the violence. She’s been in transit so long, living on the street and in shelters, that she has little documentation of her life. Still, Luna’s story is consistent with what advocates and investigations into the treatment of transgender and \u003ca href=\"https://www.rollcall.com/2020/09/24/house-report-medical-neglect-falsified-records-harmed-detained-immigrants/\">HIV-positive immigration detainees\u003c/a> have found. Much of it is also echoed in her asylum application and in her health records.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Luna eventually received a temporary humanitarian visa and Mexican identification card, good for one year. The Mexican government sent her back to Tijuana, to a safe house for LGBT refugees called \u003ca href=\"https://casaarcoiris.org/en/\">Casa Arcoiris\u003c/a>, or rainbow house.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_11846833\" class=\"wp-caption alignnone\" style=\"max-width: 800px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-medium wp-image-11846833\" src=\"https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/10/2020/11/RS45763__MG_2127-qut-800x533.jpg\" alt=\"Luna Guzmán walks through Tijuana with friends from Casa Arco Iris, a shelter for LGBTQ refugees from around the world waiting in Mexico to seek asylum in the U.S.\" width=\"800\" height=\"533\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2020/11/RS45763__MG_2127-qut-800x533.jpg 800w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2020/11/RS45763__MG_2127-qut-1020x680.jpg 1020w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2020/11/RS45763__MG_2127-qut-160x107.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2020/11/RS45763__MG_2127-qut-1536x1024.jpg 1536w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2020/11/RS45763__MG_2127-qut.jpg 1920w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 800px) 100vw, 800px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Luna Guzmán walks through Tijuana with friends from Casa Arcoiris, a shelter for LGBTQ refugees from around the world waiting in Mexico to seek asylum in the U.S. \u003ccite>(Erin Siegal McIntyre)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>October 2019\u003c/strong>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>In October, we decided to visit her again in Tijuana to see how she was doing. But we couldn’t meet her at the safe house where she was staying, because they wanted to keep the location secret.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Instead, we met up with Luna and some of her new shelter-mates at a huge supermarket where they were shopping for dried beans, carrots and cabbage. They each took turns cooking a meal from their home country for the other residents.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>One nonbinary friend from Honduras, who didn’t want to give their name for safety, said Luna is beloved in the house.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“Everybody loves her. She’s shared her history, so much we have in common,” they said. “We’ve become like family.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>That community, that stability, had changed things for Luna. She was wearing dresses and lipstick more often, laughing more with her new friends.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_11846825\" class=\"wp-caption alignnone\" style=\"max-width: 800px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-medium wp-image-11846825\" src=\"https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/10/2020/11/Luna_diptych-800x632.jpg\" alt=\"In Tijuana, Luna Guzmán has been able to express and explore her gender identity more openly.\" width=\"800\" height=\"632\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2020/11/Luna_diptych-800x632.jpg 800w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2020/11/Luna_diptych-1020x805.jpg 1020w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2020/11/Luna_diptych-160x126.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2020/11/Luna_diptych.jpg 1368w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 800px) 100vw, 800px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">In Tijuana, Luna Guzmán has been able to express and explore her gender identity more openly. \u003ccite>(Courtesy of Luna Guzmán)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>But she got serious again when she took us to see the section of border fence where she crossed the last time she came to California. She pointed to squirrels and dragonflies flitting between the slats of the fence, between countries, without even knowing it.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“It’s only we humans that don’t have that freedom,” she said.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>We asked what she thought about as she gazed through the bars of the fence to California.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“This wall kills your dreams. It takes away everything,” she said. “I told myself that when I climbed over this wall. I would leave my past behind. I would be reborn. That’s California, but I can’t get there. One day I will. It might be 2050, or 2100, but I will get there.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_11846830\" class=\"wp-caption alignnone\" style=\"max-width: 800px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-medium wp-image-11846830\" src=\"https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/10/2020/11/RS45760__MG_1096-qut-800x533.jpg\" alt=\"Luna Guzmán stands at the border fence in Tijuana, at the section she had climbed across in January 2019 during her second attempt to immigrate to California. She had been deported the year before after giving up her asylum claim, unable to withstand long months of detention and sexual harassment at the detention center.\" width=\"800\" height=\"533\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2020/11/RS45760__MG_1096-qut-800x533.jpg 800w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2020/11/RS45760__MG_1096-qut-1020x680.jpg 1020w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2020/11/RS45760__MG_1096-qut-160x107.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2020/11/RS45760__MG_1096-qut-1536x1024.jpg 1536w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2020/11/RS45760__MG_1096-qut.jpg 1920w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 800px) 100vw, 800px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Luna Guzmán stands at the border fence in Tijuana, at the section she had climbed across in January 2019 during her second attempt to immigrate to California. She had been deported the year before after giving up her asylum claim, unable to withstand long months of detention and sexual harassment at the detention center. \u003ccite>(Erin Siegal McIntyre)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003ch3>‘Thank You for Telling My Story’\u003c/h3>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>March 2020\u003c/strong>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>When the COVID-19 outbreak arrived in Mexico, Luna left us a voicemail that she planned to shelter in place with a friend outside of Ensenada.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>We talked about her relief that she was far away from the Otay Mesa Detention Center, which turned out to have one of the \u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/news/11816707/man-dies-of-covid-19-in-san-diego-ice-detention-center-lawyers-say\">biggest outbreaks of COVID-19\u003c/a>. That, ironically, being deported may have saved her life.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>On the other hand, if she had still been in detention, she might have been released to a sponsor in the U.S. — as some other transgender detainees have been — to avoid the risk of getting coronavirus.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>But a month later, in April, Luna left a voice memo. Her breathing was so heavy and ragged it was hard to understand. She said she was in the ICU at the public hospital in Tijuana, sick with COVID-19. They were about to put her on a respirator.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“Thank you for everything,” she rasped. “For wanting to tell my story. Hopefully people will remember a little bit about me.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Then, as has happened so many times over the last two years, the WhatsApp feed with Luna went quiet for weeks.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Finally, after several weeks in the hospital, Luna left another message from her hospital bed.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>They had taken her off the ventilator.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“Oh God, I thought I was gonna die,” she breathed. “But nope, Luna, she’s still here, resisting everything. I’ve got a lot more life in me. A lot I still want to say.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>November 2020\u003c/strong>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Luna left us a voice message, saying the Mexican government just extended her humanitarian visa for another year. Still, it’s been difficult for her to work and pay her rent in Tijuana. She has lingering symptoms from COVID-19, including fatigue, difficulty breathing and sore vocal cords. Her immune system is also struggling to fight HIV. She’s worried her body isn’t strong enough to fight off another virus, so is staying at home as much as possible to avoid getting reinfected with COVID-19.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Luna also said she and other migrants are celebrating Joe Biden’s win and hoping that he will make good on his campaign pledge to “end President Trump’s detrimental asylum policies,” which included making it harder for LGBTQ migrants to seek protection.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Luna said she’s ready to try for asylum in the U.S. again if things change with the new administration.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“We’re warriors, and we’ve gotten through a lot of tough situations,” Luna said.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>April 2021\u003c/strong>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Luna is still dealing with the after-effects of COVID-19. She gets out of breath easily and has to use an inhaler.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>With the help of donations from listeners, she’s been able to find stable housing in Tijuana, where she’s working part time as a dishwasher. On April 8, Luna proudly graduated from a 12-week course in gardening, nutrition and cooking for migrants on the border.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>https://twitter.com/Lareinaluna31/status/1380357337186140162?s=20\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>She’s sitting tight, waiting for a chance to work with an immigration lawyer to try to reopen her case. She said as more asylum seekers waiting at the border are getting a chance to present their claims, she’s hopeful the transgender migrants among them will find conditions in detention improved under the Biden administration.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>May 2021\u003c/strong>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Luna calls and leaves a voice message, nearly shrieking with excitement. \u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“I am in the US! I am in San Diego. I was able to cross yesterday!”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>This time, she had the help of an attorney, from the Oakland-based Transgender Law Center, who helped her with an application for humanitarian parole. And it was approved, allowing her to come into the United States while she waits for another chance to go in front of an immigration judge and ask for protection. \u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[aside postID=news_11876583 hero='https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/10/2021/06/Luna-Times-Square-1-1020x876.jpg']The Queer Detainee Empowerment Project in New York City agreed to sponsor Luna. They are helping her with housing, medical care and finding a lawyer to represent her in immigration court. \u003c/p>\n\u003cp>They sent her a plane ticket for travel from San Diego to JFK – and she boarded a flight May 17 after quarantining at a hotel in San Diego and taking a COVID test. \u003c/p>\n\u003cp>When she arrived in New York, a volunteer took her to a shelter that houses transgender women in Jamaica, Queens. She’ll eventually be able to get her own apartment, through a program in New York City that guarantees housing for people living with HIV. With her humanitarian parole status, Luna is eligible for Medicaid in New York, which can help her get HIV meds, hormones or eventually, gender-affirming surgery. QDEP can help her with English-language classes and mental health services, too. \u003c/p>\n\u003cp>She’ll still have to present her case in front of an immigration judge in New York. But this time, she’ll have a lawyer to represent her. With the pandemic, the backlog of immigration cases could take many months – even years to resolve.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>While Luna is waiting, she can start to live the life she’s dreamed about. She’s been sending us videos of her dancing to street musicians in Times Square, and wearing her new pink high tops to take the subway.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“I’m living my dream, right?” Luna said in a recent voice message. “I may not be in California, but I am in New York. I know the universe will bring good things, and I’m going to be OK.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cem>This story was originally published on Dec. 4, 2020 and last updated on June 4, 2021.\u003c/em>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cem>This project was supported by a grant from the \u003ca href=\"https://www.iwmf.org/\">International Women’s Media Foundation\u003c/a>. Their Reporting Grants for Women’s Stories Program is funded by the Secular Society. Luna Guzmán’s voice in English in the audio documentary was performed by pioneering transgender actress \u003ca href=\"https://www.imdb.com/name/nm10656367/\">Zoey Luna.\u003c/a>\u003c/em>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[ad floatright]\u003c/p>\n",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003cp>\u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/news/11852044/una-mariposa-con-las-alas-rotas-la-busqueda-de-una-solicitante-de-asilo-transgenera-para-llegar-a-california\">\u003cem>Leer en español\u003c/em>\u003c/a>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cem>Since \u003ca href=\"https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/the-california-report-magazine/id1314750545?mt=2\">The California Report Magazine\u003c/a> first aired this documentary in December 2020, dozens of listeners reached out to help Luna Guzmán with messages of encouragement and support. In May, 2021, Luna was \u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/news/11876583/living-my-dream-after-years-transgender-asylum-seeker-finally-makes-it-to-the-us\">finally able to make it to the US\u003c/a>, where she is now waiting for another chance to go before an immigration judge and ask for protection.\u003c/em>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003cp>\u003cspan class=\"utils-parseShortcode-shortcodes-__dropcapShortcode__dropcap\">W\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\u003cp>hen she turned 15, like so many girls in her town in Guatemala, Luna Guzmán celebrated with a quinceañera.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“My friend lent me the dress because she saw the way I used to cry every time we passed the dress shop on the way to school, with all those beautiful dresses,” she said in Spanish. “I would just press my hand up against the glass and stare at them for a long time.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The dress she borrowed was turquoise, with a long skirt. She took off her tennies, put on heels and a tiara, and danced with her friends.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>There was a cake, bottles of champagne and chambelanes, boys who dressed up in suits to escort her into the secret party at a friend’s house. No one was there from Luna’s family, because they couldn’t fathom her as a transgender girl.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>Moments from that birthday party still linger in Luna’s memory as a time when she truly felt delight and freedom. It was something to be savored again and again as the next decade began to unfold, even as she put back on her soccer jerseys and tried to look like the boy she knew she wasn’t inside. Even as she dealt with brutal violence and decided to take a tremendous risk and leave everything behind in Guatemala to try to find a life in California. The memories were one place in the world where she could imagine being safe, being herself.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>We first met Luna two years ago at a migrant shelter in Tijuana and have stayed in touch with her as she’s journeyed across the border, spent months in U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement detention, and sought shelter in Mexico. We’ve spent weeks frantically trying to reach her in an intensive care unit, after she left a voice message that she had been diagnosed with a severe case of COVID-19. “Thank you for telling my story,” she rasped through labored breaths, her voice barely recognizable. “If I die, I hope that one day people will remember something about me.”\u003c/p>\u003c/p>\u003cp>\u003cspan class='utils-parseShortcode-shortcodes-__youtubeShortcode__embedYoutube'>\n \u003cspan class='utils-parseShortcode-shortcodes-__youtubeShortcode__embedYoutubeInside'>\n \u003ciframe\n loading='lazy'\n class='utils-parseShortcode-shortcodes-__youtubeShortcode__youtubePlayer'\n type='text/html'\n src='//www.youtube.com/embed/8-aYksXNNUA'\n title='//www.youtube.com/embed/8-aYksXNNUA'\n allowfullscreen='true'\n style='border:0;'>\u003c/iframe>\n \u003c/span>\n \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\u003cp>\u003ch3>\u003cstrong>‘Can’t You Change Your Son?’\u003c/strong>\u003c/h3>\n\u003cp>Luna grew up on the outskirts of a small city in Central Guatemala, in a house cobbled together from sticks and newspaper. Her mom sold french fries from a cart, and Luna helped care for her three siblings, including a brother with developmental disabilities. Her dad wasn’t part of her life.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>She said she was a voracious reader, spending hours in the town library. At school she would play dress up with the other girls. Luna would transform into a butterfly, her wings made from pieces of cardboard she scavenged on the street.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“The teacher would always ask my mom, ‘Listen, can’t you change your son? Can you take him to a psychologist? A psychiatrist? It’s making my school look bad,’ ” she recalled.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Luna said her mom defended her at first. When she came out as gay at age 14, her mom gave a toast with some agua de jamaica. But as Luna got older, she said her mom disapproved of the dresses and the heels. Her son, dressing like a woman? For her, that went against nature. So Luna put back on the soccer jerseys and shorts.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“The hurtful things she said to me, I understand them better now,” said Luna. “She just wanted to protect me.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_11849344\" class=\"wp-caption alignnone\" style=\"max-width: 800px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-medium wp-image-11849344\" src=\"https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/10/2020/12/RS45761__MG_2008_crop-qut_v2-800x613.jpg\" alt=\"Luna Guzmán has spent most of her life fighting to be accepted as a transgender woman. She said she has often experienced brutal violence when she expresses her true gender identity as a woman.\" width=\"800\" height=\"613\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2020/12/RS45761__MG_2008_crop-qut_v2-800x613.jpg 800w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2020/12/RS45761__MG_2008_crop-qut_v2-1020x781.jpg 1020w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2020/12/RS45761__MG_2008_crop-qut_v2-160x123.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2020/12/RS45761__MG_2008_crop-qut_v2-1536x1177.jpg 1536w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2020/12/RS45761__MG_2008_crop-qut_v2.jpg 1856w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 800px) 100vw, 800px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Luna Guzmán has spent most of her life fighting to be accepted as a transgender woman. She said she has often experienced brutal violence when she expresses her true gender identity as a woman. \u003ccite>(Erin Siegal McIntyre)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>October 2007\u003c/strong>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>When Luna was 13, just on the cusp of adolescence, she said she was raped by an older man who was a neighbor.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“I would ask, why me? Tell me — if anyone is up there — explain it to me,” she sighed. “I still haven’t gotten an answer to this day.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Soon after, Luna said she was trafficked into prostitution. Some powerful men in her town forced her into a trafficking ring. The clients? Older men who would pay hundreds of U.S. dollars to sleep with young boys and transgender girls.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003ca href=\"https://www.reuters.com/article/us-guatemala-humantrafficking/guatemala-closes-its-eyes-to-rampant-child-sex-trafficking-u-n-idUSKCN0YU29V\">Sex trafficking is rampant in Guatemala\u003c/a>, and the United Nations has denounced the shocking number of children forced into trafficking rings because of poverty.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>But there was no one to help. The traffickers, Luna said, had connections with the police and top public officials in town. “If anyone tried to denounce them or file a complaint, they’d throw it in the trash,” she said.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Many of the kids trafficked in the ring, she said, were infected with sexually transmitted diseases. When she was 16, Luna said she found out she was HIV-positive. Harassment from people in town, who had already thrown rocks at her and told her to stay away from their children, intensified. Once, she remembered, some people beat her up so badly they broke her collarbone, telling her they wanted her to behave like a “real man.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“My town is so small, there was no information about sexual orientation or HIV,” Luna said. “No information about anything. It’s so close-minded.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>When she turned 19, she said, she was still occasionally forced into sex work. But as she reached adulthood, she started to take some small steps to wrest back control of her life. She signed up for a training course to become a volunteer firefighter.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_11849342\" class=\"wp-caption alignnone\" style=\"max-width: 800px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-medium wp-image-11849342\" src=\"https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/10/2020/12/IMG_0768_v3-800x450.jpg\" alt=\"Luna Guzmán worked as a fire fighter in her home town. She said she left the department after experiencing harassment and homophobic threats.\" width=\"800\" height=\"450\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2020/12/IMG_0768_v3-800x450.jpg 800w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2020/12/IMG_0768_v3-1020x574.jpg 1020w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2020/12/IMG_0768_v3-160x90.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2020/12/IMG_0768_v3.jpg 1500w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 800px) 100vw, 800px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Luna Guzmán worked as a firefighter in her hometown. She said she left the department after experiencing harassment and homophobic threats. \u003ccite>(Cortesía de Luna Guzmán )\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>November 2014\u003c/strong>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Luna graduated from the firefighting program. She felt powerful rescuing people from car accidents and hosing down burning buildings.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>But then, she said, the other firefighters found out she was HIV-positive, and began taunting her with homophobic slurs.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>She dreamed about a way out and set her sights on California. She’d seen videos of San Francisco’s massive pride parade. She knew in California she couldn’t be fired or evicted for being transgender, would have the right to get an ID in the name she wants to use, and use the restroom that matches her gender identity. She also hoped it was a place where she could earn enough money to pay for her transition.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>January 2017 \u003c/strong>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Luna left her family, the fire department, the neighbors, the pimps. She was 22 years old.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>She leaped onto that famous train migrants call \u003ca href=\"https://www.npr.org/sections/parallels/2014/06/05/318905712/riding-the-beast-across-mexico-to-the-u-s-border\">La Bestia\u003c/a>, or “the beast,” which travels north from Mexico’s southern border. She didn’t wear dresses on the journey. As she’s done for most of her life, she kept her hair short and wore men’s T-shirts and shorts, for safety.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_11849343\" class=\"wp-caption alignnone\" style=\"max-width: 694px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-11849343\" src=\"https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/10/2020/12/LUNA-TRAIN-2019-03-30-12-57-30_cropped_v2.jpg\" alt=\"Luna Guzmán rides a train heading from Guatemala through Mexico in 2017. She traveled with several other LGBTQ migrants and said that at one point they were attacked by men armed with machetes. \" width=\"694\" height=\"390\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2020/12/LUNA-TRAIN-2019-03-30-12-57-30_cropped_v2.jpg 694w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2020/12/LUNA-TRAIN-2019-03-30-12-57-30_cropped_v2-160x90.jpg 160w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 694px) 100vw, 694px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Luna Guzmán rides a train heading from Guatemala through Mexico in 2017. She traveled with several other LGBTQ migrants and said that at one point they were attacked by men armed with machetes. \u003ccite>(Cortesía de Luna Guzmán)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003ch3>\u003cstrong>\u003cstrong>Crossing the Border But Not Finding Safety \u003c/strong> \u003c/strong>\u003c/h3>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>August 2017\u003c/strong>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>When Luna reached the U.S.-Mexico border crossing at Otay Mesa near San Diego, she told an officer she was running away from homophobic violence in Guatemala and was requesting asylum. But her hopes that she would feel protected as soon as she crossed into the U.S. vanished.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“They took me into some offices. About 30 minutes later, they arrested me. Put chains on my hands, my feet, my waist,” she recalled. “They treat you like a criminal, just for asking for help. It feels horrible, like you’re nothing.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Border officials don’t decide on asylum requests — that happens later — but they are responsible for the transfer of detainees to ICE custody, where they’ll eventually speak with an asylum officer. However, border officials didn’t check the box on Luna’s intake form indicating that she identified as LGBT, nor the box indicating that she could be at increased risk of sexual abuse in detention.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_11846822\" class=\"wp-caption alignnone\" style=\"max-width: 800px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-medium wp-image-11846822\" src=\"https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/10/2020/11/Detainee-Assess-Form-screen-shot-800x490.png\" alt=\"U.S. Customs and Border Patrol “Detainee Assessment” form dated Aug. 9, 2017. Although Luna Guzmán clearly told officials she feared homophobic violence, they did not check the box noting that she identified as LGBTQ. \" width=\"800\" height=\"490\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2020/11/Detainee-Assess-Form-screen-shot-800x490.png 800w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2020/11/Detainee-Assess-Form-screen-shot-1020x624.png 1020w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2020/11/Detainee-Assess-Form-screen-shot-160x98.png 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2020/11/Detainee-Assess-Form-screen-shot.png 1428w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 800px) 100vw, 800px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">U.S. Customs and Border Protection ‘Detainee Assessment’ form dated Aug. 9, 2017. Although Luna Guzmán clearly told officials she feared homophobic violence, they did not check the box noting that she identified as LGBTQ. \u003ccite>(Solicitud de información bajo la Ley por la Libertad de la Información)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>That’s where things started to go wrong for her. ICE eventually assigned Luna a bed in a crowded men’s unit at the Otay Mesa Detention Center.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Ten days after she arrived at the border asking for help, an asylum officer with U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services conducted a “credible fear” interview. That’s when Luna told her she also dressed as a woman at times. The officer found her story credible.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>A few weeks later, a transgender Latina organization based near Los Angeles called \u003ca href=\"https://www.facebook.com/LasCrisantemas/?ref=page_internal\">Las Crisantemas\u003c/a> sent a letter of support to the immigration court identifying Luna as a trans woman.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>But Luna was never moved to a special detention unit for transgender women, despite the fact that in 2015 ICE had agreed to \u003ca href=\"https://www.ice.gov/news/releases/ice-issues-new-guidance-care-transgender-individuals-custody\">improve standards for transgender detainees\u003c/a>, including access to separate detention units away from the general population.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“They did not put her into the protective custody that is required by their own standards,” said Allegra Love, an attorney with the \u003ca href=\"http://www.santafedreamersproject.org/transdetention\">Santa Fe Dreamers Project\u003c/a>, which has represented hundreds of transgender women in detention over the last few years. She was never Luna’s lawyer, but we asked her to review Luna’s case after KQED sued ICE to obtain her immigration records.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“If someone expresses to them, ‘Hey, look, I am trans, I have gender dysphoria. I am not the gender you think I am,’ then the government has this responsibility acknowledged by their own hand to take that seriously and protect people from heightened danger,” said Love.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>But Luna would spend months in the men’s unit before her asylum case could be fully heard — months when she said she was repeatedly harassed and belittled by the other detainees.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_11846829\" class=\"wp-caption alignnone\" style=\"max-width: 800px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-medium wp-image-11846829\" src=\"https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/10/2020/11/RS45759__MG_0162-qut-800x533.jpg\" alt=\"Layers of security fencing at Otay Mesa immigration Detention Facility just east of San Diego, where Luna Guzmán was held for eight months while waiting to present her asylum claim.\" width=\"800\" height=\"533\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2020/11/RS45759__MG_0162-qut-800x533.jpg 800w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2020/11/RS45759__MG_0162-qut-1020x680.jpg 1020w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2020/11/RS45759__MG_0162-qut-160x107.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2020/11/RS45759__MG_0162-qut-1536x1024.jpg 1536w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2020/11/RS45759__MG_0162-qut.jpg 1920w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 800px) 100vw, 800px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Layers of security fencing at Otay Mesa Detention Center just east of San Diego, where Luna Guzmán was held for eight months while waiting to present her asylum claim. \u003ccite>(Erin Siegal McIntyre)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003ch3>\u003cstrong>Backlogged Immigration Court, Long Months in Detention\u003c/strong>\u003c/h3>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>November 2017\u003c/strong>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Luna appeared before immigration Judge Olga Attia, appointed to the immigration court in 2017 by former Attorney General Jeff Sessions. Luna was assigned an interpreter, but no lawyer. If she had wanted one, she would have had to find and pay for one herself.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>In the audio recordings of her hearings at the immigration court, Luna told the judge she was worried about being detained for so long.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“I don’t always get the medicine I need for my chronic condition [HIV],” she said.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“Unfortunately, I don’t have jurisdiction over such matters,” Attia told her. “You need to bring this to the attention of the detention officers.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>January 2018\u003c/strong>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Luna was in detention for five months before she was able to officially present her asylum application to Judge Attia. Then the judge informed her there were no available appointments to hear the merits of her case for another five months.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>February 2018\u003c/strong>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>After six months in detention, Luna was eligible to get out on bond. ICE attorneys didn’t object as she had no criminal history. The judge set the bond at $4,500, but like many asylum seekers, she had no way to pay that kind of money.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Luna pleaded with the judge. “It’s hurting me, psychologically,” she said. “I’ve never been locked up, your honor.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>March 2018\u003c/strong>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Unable to tolerate being in detention in a men’s unit any longer, Luna did something she never expected to do. She gave up on her asylum case and asked to be deported right away.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“It’s been eight months since I was detained at the detention center, your honor,” she said through an interpreter. “I feel alone. I don’t have the words to explain to you.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Even as Attia accepted the withdrawal of Luna’s asylum application, it wasn’t clear that the judge understood that Luna was transgender. Even after the interpreter explained that Luna was referring to herself in the feminine pronoun, Attia kept calling Luna “sir.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“I can only imagine the loss of hope that someone experiences when they’re fleeing a country where the reason their life is in danger is because their institutions refuse to acknowledge who they are,” said Love, the attorney who has represented dozens of transgender detainees from Central America. “Then to arrive with a hopeful feeling in a place where they think they are going to have a different treatment, and then to have law enforcement officers and judges — officers of the court — immediately reject them as well.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Even if Luna had decided to stay in detention and pursue her asylum claim, the odds were against her, especially without a lawyer. During the last year of the Obama administration, 55% of all asylum applications were denied. Under the Trump administration, those numbers jumped to a record high of 72% in 2020, according to data from \u003ca href=\"https://trac.syr.edu/whatsnew/email.201028.html\">Syracuse University’s TRAC project\u003c/a>.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>For asylum seekers from Guatemala, the rate is even higher: 85.8% of those applications are denied.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>April 2018\u003c/strong>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>On the plane ICE chartered to transport Luna and other detainees back to Guatemala, she recalled, she had a panic attack, shaking so badly she could barely walk onto the tarmac when she landed in Guatemala City.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>She said she went to stay with her sister, who had married an evangelical Christian. After a few days, however, she said her sister gave her some money and asked her to leave.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“You don’t have a home with me as a sister,” Luna remembered her saying. “Only as a brother.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>November 2018\u003c/strong>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Luna had left Guatemala and had gradually made her way back to the U.S.-Mexico border, hoping to find her way to California again. We met Luna while she was staying at \u003ca href=\"https://www.facebook.com/CasadelMigranteTijuana/\">Casa del Migrante\u003c/a>, a migrant shelter in Tijuana.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"content": "‘I am a transgender woman. I’m not going to live dressed as a boy my whole life. One day soon I want everyone who knows me to say, “Luna made it. She fought for her dreams and they came true.”‘",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>She said she was trying to make it as a dishwasher in a restaurant where the owner kept making homophobic comments. She was also scrambling to find a clinic to get her HIV medication without a Mexican ID.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The soles of her tennis shoes were wearing thin, and she was wearing a soccer jersey, her hair buzzed short.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“I am a transgender woman. I’m not going to live dressed as a boy my whole life,” Luna told us. “One day soon I want everyone who knows me to say, ‘Luna made it. She fought for her dreams and they came true.’ ”\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_11846832\" class=\"wp-caption alignnone\" style=\"max-width: 800px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-medium wp-image-11846832\" src=\"https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/10/2020/11/RS45762__MG_2087-qut-800x533.jpg\" alt=\"Luna Guzmán stands in front of a mural in Tijuana. As a child, she often dressed up as a butterfly. In detention, she said she felt like a “butterfly with its wings cut off.”\" width=\"800\" height=\"533\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2020/11/RS45762__MG_2087-qut-800x533.jpg 800w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2020/11/RS45762__MG_2087-qut-1020x680.jpg 1020w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2020/11/RS45762__MG_2087-qut-160x107.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2020/11/RS45762__MG_2087-qut-1536x1024.jpg 1536w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2020/11/RS45762__MG_2087-qut.jpg 1920w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 800px) 100vw, 800px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Luna Guzmán stands in front of a mural in Tijuana. As a child, she often dressed up as a butterfly. In detention, she said she felt like a “butterfly with its wings cut off.” \u003ccite>(Erin Siegal McIntyre)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>January 2019\u003c/strong>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>A month later, Luna messaged via WhatsApp to say she knew her dream of coming to California was probably over, because she had given up her asylum case the year before.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>But then, a few weeks later, she sent a video of herself standing someplace windy, with the border wall far behind her.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“Look!” she exclaimed. “I crossed! I’ll see you in San Francisco, by the Golden Gate bridge, for a coffee.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Then the WhatsApp feed went quiet for weeks.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>February 2019\u003c/strong>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Finally, we got a collect call from Otay Mesa Detention Center. Over the scratchy phone line, Luna said she was in the same cell and the same bed where she had stayed the year before.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“I feel like a butterfly who’s had her wings cut off,” she said.\u003c/p>\n\u003ch3>\u003cstrong>‘I’ve Been a Prisoner in My Own Body, Now I’m a Prisoner Here’\u003c/strong>\u003c/h3>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>March 12, 2019\u003c/strong>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>After Luna had been detained for about six weeks, ICE granted us permission to interview her in person at Otay Mesa.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>We followed a guard to a waiting room with other families. A sign above one guard’s gray metal desk proclaimed “Hope is the anchor for the soul. Be grateful.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>When they called our names, we walked down past a heavy door, to where Luna sat in a tiny room. She wore blue crocs, brown socks and a blue uniform with “detainee” emblazoned on the back in white letters.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_11846827\" class=\"wp-caption alignnone\" style=\"max-width: 800px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-medium wp-image-11846827\" src=\"https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/10/2020/11/RS45757__MG_0143-qut-800x533.jpg\" alt=\"The California Report’s Sasha Khokha interviews Luna Guzmán inside Otay Mesa Detention Center in March 2019. \" width=\"800\" height=\"533\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2020/11/RS45757__MG_0143-qut-800x533.jpg 800w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2020/11/RS45757__MG_0143-qut-1020x680.jpg 1020w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2020/11/RS45757__MG_0143-qut-160x107.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2020/11/RS45757__MG_0143-qut-1536x1024.jpg 1536w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2020/11/RS45757__MG_0143-qut.jpg 1920w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 800px) 100vw, 800px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">The California Report’s Sasha Khokha interviews Luna Guzmán inside Otay Mesa Detention Center in March 2019. \u003ccite>(Erin Siegal McIntyre.)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>She looked gaunt and exhausted, but her eyes were still bright. Her hair was shorn super-short. She had to cut it all off after a bully hacked off a chunk of it with a razor, she said.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“He told me he couldn’t stand homosexuals and whipped out the razor,” she said. “He told me if I complained to the guards, it would be worse.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Luna said that happened at the Metropolitan Correctional Facility, a federal jail in San Diego, where she had been held for about a week after Border Patrol agents picked her up. She was charged there with the federal crime of illegally reentering the U.S., after President Trump ramped up prosecutions under a “zero tolerance” policy.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>But the sexual harassment at the ICE detention facility, she said, was even worse.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“Some people here, they touch your butt, your breasts, they look at you when you’re taking a shower,” she said. “They flash us. I don’t want to be here anymore. I know if I complain they won’t listen to me.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Luna told us she couldn’t afford to buy shampoo or snacks from the detention center commissary. She said other inmates offered to buy them for her, in exchange for sexual favors.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“I’m not going to do something I don’t want to do for a cup of soup that costs 60 cents,” she said. “I’m not going to have sex with anyone here. There’s discrimination on the outside. But here, it’s a different world. It’s worse. … You have nowhere to go to get away from it. You’re trapped.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>A \u003ca href=\"https://www.americanprogress.org/issues/lgbtq-rights/news/2018/05/30/451294/ices-rejection-rules-placing-lgbt-immigrants-severe-risk-sexual-abuse/\">2018 study \u003c/a>found that LGBT immigrants are nearly 100 times more likely to be sexually harassed or assaulted in ICE detention.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“I’ve been a prisoner in my own body, I’m now a prisoner here,” Luna said.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>She told us she didn’t want to cry in front of us. She wanted to be the strong person who had impressed us with her courage and tenacity when we met her in Tijuana four months earlier.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>But after our interview, we peeked back through a window of the tiny room. Her head was on the table, and she was sobbing.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_11846828\" class=\"wp-caption alignnone\" style=\"max-width: 800px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-medium wp-image-11846828\" src=\"https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/10/2020/11/RS45758__MG_0156-qut-800x533.jpg\" alt=\"Luna Guzmán puts her head down and cries after her interview with reporters Sasha Khokha and Erin Siegal McIntyre. \" width=\"800\" height=\"533\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2020/11/RS45758__MG_0156-qut-800x533.jpg 800w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2020/11/RS45758__MG_0156-qut-1020x680.jpg 1020w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2020/11/RS45758__MG_0156-qut-160x107.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2020/11/RS45758__MG_0156-qut-1536x1024.jpg 1536w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2020/11/RS45758__MG_0156-qut.jpg 1920w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 800px) 100vw, 800px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Luna Guzmán puts her head down and cries after her interview with reporters Sasha Khokha and Erin Siegal McIntyre. \u003ccite>(Erin Siegal McIntyre. )\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>Luna’s second stint in detention only lasted a couple months. ICE moved to deport her as soon as possible: She had re-entered the U.S. by climbing the border fence and violated the five-year bar on re-entry imposed on her when she was deported the first time. Now, she was barred from returning to the U.S. for 20 years.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>This was her second time in detention, and she still had no lawyer. No one to tell her about an alternative to asylum — something called “\u003ca href=\"https://www.justia.com/lgbtq/immigration/transgender-rights/\">withholding of removal,\u003c/a>” which has allowed some transgender women from Central America to stay in the U.S.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“If she had partnered with a skilled asylum lawyer, we would be having a really different conversation right now about her,” said Love. “We might be talking about her now in 2020, enrolling in community college or, you know, getting her first apartment or, in fact, getting her legal permanent residence in the United States and having a green card. But instead, she was not provided with the due process that she was owed.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp> \u003c/p>\n\u003ch3>\u003cstrong>‘It’s Not Safe For You To Stay in Guatemala’\u003c/strong>\u003c/h3>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>March 27, 2019\u003c/strong>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Luna was deported a second time to Guatemala City. KQED hired a film crew to meet her when she got off the plane.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>She counted out four U.S. dollar bills from a plastic bag marked “personal property” — money she said she earned working in the laundry at the detention center. She brushed her hand over her face, as if to make it all go away.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Then she headed to \u003ca href=\"https://asociacionlambda.com/\">Asociación Lambda\u003c/a>, an LGBT organization in Guatemala City that helps deportees, but after hearing her story, an intake worker told Luna it was unsafe for her to stay in Guatemala.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“Your profile is very high risk,” he said.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>He didn’t need to remind her about the \u003ca href=\"https://www.pri.org/stories/2020-02-13/ice-deported-trans-asylum-seeker-she-was-killed-el-salvador\">trans women who’ve been murdered\u003c/a> recently after being deported back to Central America. He also said he worried the traffickers from her hometown might have connections in Guatemala City and could track her down.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>He arranged for a safe house in a secret location, but Luna decided to leave after just one night there. She refused to feel locked up again.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>By now we’d been reporting on Luna’s story for five months. Some transgender California Report listeners in Modesto who heard one of the stories even reached out to her and sent her $80, money that helped her get out of Guatemala again and start another journey back to the border. They also put together a drag performance that they dedicated to her.\u003c/p>\u003c/p>\u003cp>\u003cspan class='utils-parseShortcode-shortcodes-__youtubeShortcode__embedYoutube'>\n \u003cspan class='utils-parseShortcode-shortcodes-__youtubeShortcode__embedYoutubeInside'>\n \u003ciframe\n loading='lazy'\n class='utils-parseShortcode-shortcodes-__youtubeShortcode__youtubePlayer'\n type='text/html'\n src='//www.youtube.com/embed/XkR9vHtM9T8'\n title='//www.youtube.com/embed/XkR9vHtM9T8'\n allowfullscreen='true'\n style='border:0;'>\u003c/iframe>\n \u003c/span>\n \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\u003cp>\u003cp>\u003cstrong>April-July 2019\u003c/strong>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>After a few more months, Luna found her way out of Guatemala and back to Mexico. She applied for a humanitarian visa to stay temporarily and found a job making tortillas in a restaurant in Tapachula. She met some new friends, other transgender migrants.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Soon, emboldened by her new friends, she decided to dress as a woman again, for dinner with them at a local cafe.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Then she called at 6 a.m. the next morning, crying. She said she had been raped by five armed men, who abducted her while she was waiting alone for a taxi after dinner. She said they beat her, kicking her in the kidneys, where she was recovering from a recent infection.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“Why is that every time I show the person I really am, does it go so wrong?” she sobbed. “Why is life so hard?”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>She said she was too afraid to file a complaint with the Mexican police, that they would probably do nothing but laugh at her and say homophobic things. She sent me a Facebook post about the \u003ca href=\"https://www.diariodelsur.com.mx/local/gobierno-de-chiapas-complice-en-crimenes-de-odio-y-violencia-activistas-3949418.html\">death of a gay activist, Juan Ruiz Nicolas\u003c/a>, who was assassinated in Tapachula, the town where she was staying near the Guatemala border.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"content": "‘If [Luna] had partnered with a skilled asylum lawyer, we would be having a really different conversation right now about her. We might be talking about her now in 2020, enrolling in community college … getting her first apartment or, in fact, getting her legal permanent residence in the United States.’",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Because she didn’t report the rape to anyone, it’s hard to confirm that Luna was assaulted. This is part of the paradox for asylum seekers. They’re expected to document and prove the horrible things that have happened to them, but all too often, the act of reporting these abuses could put them in more danger.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Of course, as journalists, we’ve done our best to vet her story. KQED even sued the Department of Homeland Security to obtain Luna’s records. But when it comes to what happened to Luna in Guatemala or Mexico, there’s no way to prove the trafficking and the violence. She’s been in transit so long, living on the street and in shelters, that she has little documentation of her life. Still, Luna’s story is consistent with what advocates and investigations into the treatment of transgender and \u003ca href=\"https://www.rollcall.com/2020/09/24/house-report-medical-neglect-falsified-records-harmed-detained-immigrants/\">HIV-positive immigration detainees\u003c/a> have found. Much of it is also echoed in her asylum application and in her health records.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Luna eventually received a temporary humanitarian visa and Mexican identification card, good for one year. The Mexican government sent her back to Tijuana, to a safe house for LGBT refugees called \u003ca href=\"https://casaarcoiris.org/en/\">Casa Arcoiris\u003c/a>, or rainbow house.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_11846833\" class=\"wp-caption alignnone\" style=\"max-width: 800px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-medium wp-image-11846833\" src=\"https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/10/2020/11/RS45763__MG_2127-qut-800x533.jpg\" alt=\"Luna Guzmán walks through Tijuana with friends from Casa Arco Iris, a shelter for LGBTQ refugees from around the world waiting in Mexico to seek asylum in the U.S.\" width=\"800\" height=\"533\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2020/11/RS45763__MG_2127-qut-800x533.jpg 800w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2020/11/RS45763__MG_2127-qut-1020x680.jpg 1020w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2020/11/RS45763__MG_2127-qut-160x107.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2020/11/RS45763__MG_2127-qut-1536x1024.jpg 1536w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2020/11/RS45763__MG_2127-qut.jpg 1920w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 800px) 100vw, 800px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Luna Guzmán walks through Tijuana with friends from Casa Arcoiris, a shelter for LGBTQ refugees from around the world waiting in Mexico to seek asylum in the U.S. \u003ccite>(Erin Siegal McIntyre)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>October 2019\u003c/strong>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>In October, we decided to visit her again in Tijuana to see how she was doing. But we couldn’t meet her at the safe house where she was staying, because they wanted to keep the location secret.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Instead, we met up with Luna and some of her new shelter-mates at a huge supermarket where they were shopping for dried beans, carrots and cabbage. They each took turns cooking a meal from their home country for the other residents.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>One nonbinary friend from Honduras, who didn’t want to give their name for safety, said Luna is beloved in the house.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“Everybody loves her. She’s shared her history, so much we have in common,” they said. “We’ve become like family.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>That community, that stability, had changed things for Luna. She was wearing dresses and lipstick more often, laughing more with her new friends.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_11846825\" class=\"wp-caption alignnone\" style=\"max-width: 800px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-medium wp-image-11846825\" src=\"https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/10/2020/11/Luna_diptych-800x632.jpg\" alt=\"In Tijuana, Luna Guzmán has been able to express and explore her gender identity more openly.\" width=\"800\" height=\"632\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2020/11/Luna_diptych-800x632.jpg 800w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2020/11/Luna_diptych-1020x805.jpg 1020w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2020/11/Luna_diptych-160x126.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2020/11/Luna_diptych.jpg 1368w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 800px) 100vw, 800px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">In Tijuana, Luna Guzmán has been able to express and explore her gender identity more openly. \u003ccite>(Courtesy of Luna Guzmán)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>But she got serious again when she took us to see the section of border fence where she crossed the last time she came to California. She pointed to squirrels and dragonflies flitting between the slats of the fence, between countries, without even knowing it.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“It’s only we humans that don’t have that freedom,” she said.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>We asked what she thought about as she gazed through the bars of the fence to California.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“This wall kills your dreams. It takes away everything,” she said. “I told myself that when I climbed over this wall. I would leave my past behind. I would be reborn. That’s California, but I can’t get there. One day I will. It might be 2050, or 2100, but I will get there.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_11846830\" class=\"wp-caption alignnone\" style=\"max-width: 800px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-medium wp-image-11846830\" src=\"https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/10/2020/11/RS45760__MG_1096-qut-800x533.jpg\" alt=\"Luna Guzmán stands at the border fence in Tijuana, at the section she had climbed across in January 2019 during her second attempt to immigrate to California. She had been deported the year before after giving up her asylum claim, unable to withstand long months of detention and sexual harassment at the detention center.\" width=\"800\" height=\"533\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2020/11/RS45760__MG_1096-qut-800x533.jpg 800w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2020/11/RS45760__MG_1096-qut-1020x680.jpg 1020w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2020/11/RS45760__MG_1096-qut-160x107.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2020/11/RS45760__MG_1096-qut-1536x1024.jpg 1536w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2020/11/RS45760__MG_1096-qut.jpg 1920w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 800px) 100vw, 800px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Luna Guzmán stands at the border fence in Tijuana, at the section she had climbed across in January 2019 during her second attempt to immigrate to California. She had been deported the year before after giving up her asylum claim, unable to withstand long months of detention and sexual harassment at the detention center. \u003ccite>(Erin Siegal McIntyre)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003ch3>‘Thank You for Telling My Story’\u003c/h3>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>March 2020\u003c/strong>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>When the COVID-19 outbreak arrived in Mexico, Luna left us a voicemail that she planned to shelter in place with a friend outside of Ensenada.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>We talked about her relief that she was far away from the Otay Mesa Detention Center, which turned out to have one of the \u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/news/11816707/man-dies-of-covid-19-in-san-diego-ice-detention-center-lawyers-say\">biggest outbreaks of COVID-19\u003c/a>. That, ironically, being deported may have saved her life.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>On the other hand, if she had still been in detention, she might have been released to a sponsor in the U.S. — as some other transgender detainees have been — to avoid the risk of getting coronavirus.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>But a month later, in April, Luna left a voice memo. Her breathing was so heavy and ragged it was hard to understand. She said she was in the ICU at the public hospital in Tijuana, sick with COVID-19. They were about to put her on a respirator.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“Thank you for everything,” she rasped. “For wanting to tell my story. Hopefully people will remember a little bit about me.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Then, as has happened so many times over the last two years, the WhatsApp feed with Luna went quiet for weeks.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Finally, after several weeks in the hospital, Luna left another message from her hospital bed.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>They had taken her off the ventilator.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“Oh God, I thought I was gonna die,” she breathed. “But nope, Luna, she’s still here, resisting everything. I’ve got a lot more life in me. A lot I still want to say.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>November 2020\u003c/strong>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Luna left us a voice message, saying the Mexican government just extended her humanitarian visa for another year. Still, it’s been difficult for her to work and pay her rent in Tijuana. She has lingering symptoms from COVID-19, including fatigue, difficulty breathing and sore vocal cords. Her immune system is also struggling to fight HIV. She’s worried her body isn’t strong enough to fight off another virus, so is staying at home as much as possible to avoid getting reinfected with COVID-19.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Luna also said she and other migrants are celebrating Joe Biden’s win and hoping that he will make good on his campaign pledge to “end President Trump’s detrimental asylum policies,” which included making it harder for LGBTQ migrants to seek protection.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Luna said she’s ready to try for asylum in the U.S. again if things change with the new administration.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“We’re warriors, and we’ve gotten through a lot of tough situations,” Luna said.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>April 2021\u003c/strong>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Luna is still dealing with the after-effects of COVID-19. She gets out of breath easily and has to use an inhaler.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>With the help of donations from listeners, she’s been able to find stable housing in Tijuana, where she’s working part time as a dishwasher. On April 8, Luna proudly graduated from a 12-week course in gardening, nutrition and cooking for migrants on the border.\u003c/p>\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\n\u003cp>She’s sitting tight, waiting for a chance to work with an immigration lawyer to try to reopen her case. She said as more asylum seekers waiting at the border are getting a chance to present their claims, she’s hopeful the transgender migrants among them will find conditions in detention improved under the Biden administration.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>May 2021\u003c/strong>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Luna calls and leaves a voice message, nearly shrieking with excitement. \u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“I am in the US! I am in San Diego. I was able to cross yesterday!”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>This time, she had the help of an attorney, from the Oakland-based Transgender Law Center, who helped her with an application for humanitarian parole. And it was approved, allowing her to come into the United States while she waits for another chance to go in front of an immigration judge and ask for protection. \u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>The Queer Detainee Empowerment Project in New York City agreed to sponsor Luna. They are helping her with housing, medical care and finding a lawyer to represent her in immigration court. \u003c/p>\n\u003cp>They sent her a plane ticket for travel from San Diego to JFK – and she boarded a flight May 17 after quarantining at a hotel in San Diego and taking a COVID test. \u003c/p>\n\u003cp>When she arrived in New York, a volunteer took her to a shelter that houses transgender women in Jamaica, Queens. She’ll eventually be able to get her own apartment, through a program in New York City that guarantees housing for people living with HIV. With her humanitarian parole status, Luna is eligible for Medicaid in New York, which can help her get HIV meds, hormones or eventually, gender-affirming surgery. QDEP can help her with English-language classes and mental health services, too. \u003c/p>\n\u003cp>She’ll still have to present her case in front of an immigration judge in New York. But this time, she’ll have a lawyer to represent her. With the pandemic, the backlog of immigration cases could take many months – even years to resolve.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>While Luna is waiting, she can start to live the life she’s dreamed about. She’s been sending us videos of her dancing to street musicians in Times Square, and wearing her new pink high tops to take the subway.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“I’m living my dream, right?” Luna said in a recent voice message. “I may not be in California, but I am in New York. I know the universe will bring good things, and I’m going to be OK.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cem>This story was originally published on Dec. 4, 2020 and last updated on June 4, 2021.\u003c/em>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cem>This project was supported by a grant from the \u003ca href=\"https://www.iwmf.org/\">International Women’s Media Foundation\u003c/a>. Their Reporting Grants for Women’s Stories Program is funded by the Secular Society. Luna Guzmán’s voice in English in the audio documentary was performed by pioneering transgender actress \u003ca href=\"https://www.imdb.com/name/nm10656367/\">Zoey Luna.\u003c/a>\u003c/em>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"content": "\u003cp>\u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/news/11844742/a-butterfly-with-my-wings-cut-off-a-transgender-asylum-seekers-quest-to-come-to-california\">\u003cem>Read in English\u003c/em>\u003c/a>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cem>Nota de editorx: Pese a que la Real Academia Española (RAE) específica el uso del término transgénero para describir y abarcar todas las experiencias trans dentro del arco de la identidad de género, hemos decidido utilizar la palabra transgénera con la intención de usar un término que mejor corresponda a las experiencias e identidad de Luna.\u003c/em>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Cuando cumplió 15 años, como tantas chicas en su pueblo en Guatemala, Luna Guzmán celebró con una quinceañera.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“Me prestaron el vestido de una compañera porque yo lloraba. Cada vez que íbamos a la escuela teníamos que pasar en frente de una tienda donde habían vestidos de novia y de quinceañera”, dijo Luna. “Yo siempre me quedaba viendo, hasta tocaba el vidrio”.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>El vestido que pidió prestado era de color turquesa, con una falda larga. Se quitó sus zapatos tenis, se puso los tacones y una tiara y empezó a bailar con sus amigos.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Había un pastel, botellas de champán y chambelanes, chicos que se vistieron en trajes para acompañarla a la fiesta secreta en casa de un amigo. Ninguno de sus parientes estaba allí porque no podían imaginar a Luna como una niña transgénera.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[pullquote size=\"medium\" align=\"right\" citation=\"Luna Guzmán\"]‘La maestra siempre hablaba con mi mamá. Le decía, ‘¿Oye por qué no puedes cambiar a tu hijo? ¿No los puedes llevar con un psicólogo? ¿No lo puedes llevar con un psiquiatra? Hace ver mal a mi escuela’[/pullquote]\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Instantes de esa fiesta de cumpleaños perduran en la memoria de Luna como un tiempo en su vida en el cual sintió verdaderamente el placer y la libertad. Era algo para saborear una y otra vez conforme iniciaba la década siguiente, cuando vestía camisetas de fútbol y trataba de parecerse al chico que sabía no llevaba por dentro. Mientras lidiaba con una violencia brutal, decidió tomar el tremendo riesgo de dejar atrás todo en Guatemala y tratar de encontrar una nueva vida en California. Las memorias eran un lugar en donde ella podía imaginarse a salvo, siendo ella misma.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Conocimos a Luna en un refugio para migrantes en Tijuana dos años atrás y desde entonces nos hemos mantenido en contacto con ella, durante su viaje por la frontera, donde pasó meses detenida por el Servicio de Inmigración y Control de Aduanas (ICE por sus siglas en inglés), y su búsqueda por el amparo en México. Pasamos semanas tratando desesperadamente de localizarla en una unidad de cuidados intensivos después de que ella dejara un mensaje de voz en el que había sido diagnosticada con un caso severo de COVID-19. “Gracias por contar mi historia”, dijo con voz ronca y entrecortada, apenas se reconocía su voz . “Gracias por todo. Por contar mi historia. Si muero, ojalá que la gente un día se acuerde de mí”.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8-aYksXNNUA\u003c/p>\n\u003ch3>‘¿No puedes cambiar a tu hijo?’\u003c/h3>\n\u003cp>Luna creció en las afueras de una pequeña ciudad en el área central de Guatemala, en una casa construida por palos y periódicos. Su madre vendía papas fritas en un carrito de comida y Luna ayudó a cuidar a sus tres hermanos, uno de ellos con discapacidades del desarrollo. Su padre no formó parte de su vida.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Luna contó que era una voraz lectora, pasando horas en la biblioteca de su ciudad. En la escuela jugaba a disfrazarse con otras chicas. Luna se transformaba en una mariposa, sus alas estaban hechas de pedazos de cartón que encontraba en las calles.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“La maestra siempre hablaba con mi mamá. Le decía, ‘¿Oye por qué no puedes cambiar a tu hijo? ¿No lo puedes llevar con un psicólogo? ¿No lo puedes llevar con un psiquiatra? Hace ver mal a mi escuela”.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Luna dijo que su madre la defendió al principio. Cuando confesó ser gay a los 14 años, su mamá brindó con una copa de agua de jamaica. Pero a medida que Luna crecía, su madre desaprobaba los vestidos y los tacones. Su hijo, ¿vistiéndose como una mujer? Para ella, eso iba en contra de la naturaleza. Entonces Luna volvió a vestir con camisetas de fútbol y pantalones cortos.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“Esos desprecios ahora los entiendo”, dijo Luna. “Ella tal vez quería protegerme”.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_11849344\" class=\"wp-caption alignnone\" style=\"max-width: 800px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"wp-image-11849344 size-medium\" src=\"https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/10/2020/12/RS45761__MG_2008_crop-qut_v2-800x613.jpg\" alt=\"A lo largo de su vida, Luna Guzmán ha luchado para ser aceptada como mujer transgénera. Ella ha dicho que ha sido víctima de violencia brutal cuando demuestra su verdadera identidad de género como mujer.\" width=\"800\" height=\"613\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2020/12/RS45761__MG_2008_crop-qut_v2-800x613.jpg 800w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2020/12/RS45761__MG_2008_crop-qut_v2-1020x781.jpg 1020w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2020/12/RS45761__MG_2008_crop-qut_v2-160x123.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2020/12/RS45761__MG_2008_crop-qut_v2-1536x1177.jpg 1536w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2020/12/RS45761__MG_2008_crop-qut_v2.jpg 1856w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 800px) 100vw, 800px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">A lo largo de su vida, Luna Guzmán ha luchado para ser aceptada como mujer transgénera. Ella ha dicho que ha sido víctima de violencia brutal cuando demuestra su verdadera identidad de género como mujer. \u003ccite>(Erin Siegal McIntyre)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Octubre de 2007\u003c/strong>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>A los 13 años, justo en la cúspide de su adolescencia, Luna fue violada por un hombre mayor que era su vecino.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“En un principio decía ¿por qué a mí? Explícame ¿por qué a mí? Si hay alguien ahí arriba por qué no me explicas”, suspiró Luna. “Pero nunca obtuve esa respuesta. Nunca la obtuve. Hasta hoy en día nunca la he tenido.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Luna contó que poco después fue forzada a integrar una red de tráfico de personas y labor sexual. Algunos hombres de mucho poder en su pueblo la obligaron a entrar a una red de tráfico de personas. ¿Los clientes? Hombres mayores que pagaban cientos de dólares estadounidenses para dormir con niños pequeños y niñas transgénera.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>El tráfico de personas y la explotación sexual están desenfrenados en Guatemala, y la Organización de las Naciones Unidas ha denunciado el alarmante número de menores de edad forzados a ingresar a redes de tráfico debido a la pobreza.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Pero no había nadie que la ayudara. Los proxenetas, según Luna, tenían vínculos con la policía y los principales funcionarios públicos de la ciudad. “Si alguien intentaba denunciarlos o presentar una denuncia, lo tiraban a la basura”, dijo Luna.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Muchos menores de edad en la red de tráfico de personas estaban infectados con enfermedades de transmisión sexual. Cuando tenía 16 años, Luna descubrió que era portadora del virus de inmunodeficiencia humana, conocido también como VIH. El acoso de la gente se intensificó en una ciudad donde ya se le había arrojado piedras y manifestado que se mantuviera alejada de los niños. Luna recuerda que, una vez, algunas personas la golpearon con tanta fuerza que le rompieron la clavícula y le dijeron que se comportara como un “hombre de verdad”.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“Mi pueblo es tan pequeño. No hay información sobre orientación sexual, sobre VIH”, dijo Luna. “No hay información de nada. Es muy cerrado (de mente)”.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Cuando cumplío 19 años, Luna cuenta que todavía la obligaban ocasionalmente a trabajar en la red de tráfico sexual. Al llegar a la edad adulta, comenzó a dar algunos pasos para recuperar el control de su vida. Se inscribió en un curso para convertirse en una bombero voluntaria.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_11849342\" class=\"wp-caption alignnone\" style=\"max-width: 800px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"wp-image-11849342 size-medium\" src=\"https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/10/2020/12/IMG_0768_v3-800x450.jpg\" alt=\"Luna Guzmán worked as a fire fighter in her home town. She said she left the department after experiencing harassment and homophobic threats.\" width=\"800\" height=\"450\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2020/12/IMG_0768_v3-800x450.jpg 800w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2020/12/IMG_0768_v3-1020x574.jpg 1020w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2020/12/IMG_0768_v3-160x90.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2020/12/IMG_0768_v3.jpg 1500w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 800px) 100vw, 800px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Luna Guzmán trabajó como bombera en su pueblo natal. Ella dice que abandonó la cuadrilla luego de sufrir acoso y amenazas homofóbicas. \u003ccite>(Cortesía de Luna Guzmán )\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Noviembre de 2014\u003c/strong>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Luna se graduó del programa de bomberos. Se sentía valerosa al rescatar personas de accidentes automovilísticos y apagar edificios en llamas. Pero luego, los otros bomberos descubrieron que era portadora del VIH y comenzaron a burlarse de ella con insultos homofóbicos.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Soñó entonces con una salida y puso su mirada en California. Había visto vídeos del enorme desfile del orgullo LGBTQ en San Francisco. Sabía que en California no podría ser despedida o desalojada por ser transgénera, tendría derecho a obtener una identificación con el nombre que deseaba y a usar el baño que coincida con su género. También esperaba poder ganar lo suficiente dinero para pagar su transición.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[ad fullwidth]\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Enero de 2017\u003c/strong>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Luna dejó a su familia, el departamento de bomberos, los vecinos y los proxenetas. Tenía 22 años.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Se subió al famoso tren que los migrantes llaman La Bestia, que viaja de la frontera sur a la frontera norte de México. No usó vestidos en el viaje. Como ha hecho durante la mayor parte de su vida, mantuvo su cabello corto y usó camisetas y pantalones cortos de hombre por seguridad.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_11849343\" class=\"wp-caption alignnone\" style=\"max-width: 694px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"wp-image-11849343 size-full\" src=\"https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/10/2020/12/LUNA-TRAIN-2019-03-30-12-57-30_cropped_v2.jpg\" alt=\"Luna Guzmán rides a train heading from Guatemala through Mexico in 2017. She travelled with several other LGBTQ migrants and said that at one point they were attacked by men armed with machetes.\" width=\"694\" height=\"390\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2020/12/LUNA-TRAIN-2019-03-30-12-57-30_cropped_v2.jpg 694w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2020/12/LUNA-TRAIN-2019-03-30-12-57-30_cropped_v2-160x90.jpg 160w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 694px) 100vw, 694px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Luna Guzmán montada en un tren, el cual la llevaría de Guatemala a México en 2017. Viajó con otros migrantes LGBTQ y dijo que una vez fueron atacados por hombres armados con machetes. \u003ccite>(Cortesía de Luna Guzmán)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003ch3>Cruzando la Frontera Sin Un Respaldo Seguro\u003c/h3>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Agosto de 2017\u003c/strong>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Cuando Luna llegó al cruce fronterizo entre Estados Unidos y México en Otay Mesa, cerca de San Diego, le dijo a un oficial que estaba huyendo de la violencia homofóbica en Guatemala y que estaba pidiendo asilo. Sin embargo, sus esperanzas de sentirse protegida se desvanecieron al cruzar a Estados Unidos.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“Me entraron a unas oficinas. Y como a los 30 minutos me arrestaron en unas cadenas en las manos, en los pies, en la cintura”, dijo Luna. “Aquí te tratan como un criminal, solamente por eso. Se siente bien feo, te sientes como un zero a la izquierda”.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Los agentes fronterizos no determinan las solicitudes de asilo—eso sucede más tarde—pero son responsables de la transferencia de los detenidos en custodia de ICE, donde eventualmente hablan con un oficial encargado de procesar una petición de asilo. Sin embargo, los funcionarios fronterizos no marcaron la casilla en el formulario de admisión de Luna que indica que se identificó como LGBTQ, ni la casilla que indica que podría correr un mayor riesgo de abuso sexual durante su detención.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_11846822\" class=\"wp-caption alignnone\" style=\"max-width: 800px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"wp-image-11846822 size-medium\" src=\"https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/10/2020/11/Detainee-Assess-Form-screen-shot-800x490.png\" alt=\"U.S. Customs and Border Patrol “Detainee Assessment” form dated 8/9/2017. Although Luna Guzmán clearly told officials she feared homophobic violence, they did not check the box noting that she identified as LGBTQ.\" width=\"800\" height=\"490\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2020/11/Detainee-Assess-Form-screen-shot-800x490.png 800w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2020/11/Detainee-Assess-Form-screen-shot-1020x624.png 1020w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2020/11/Detainee-Assess-Form-screen-shot-160x98.png 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2020/11/Detainee-Assess-Form-screen-shot.png 1428w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 800px) 100vw, 800px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Un formulario titulado ‘Evaluación del detenido’ de la Oficina de Aduanas y Protección Fronteriza, con la fecha 9 de agosto, de 2017. Pese a que Luna Guzmán claramente le explicó a los oficiales que ella había sido un blanco de violencia homofóbica, ellos no marcaron la casilla para identificar a Luna como alguien LGBTQ. \u003ccite>(Solicitud de información bajo la Ley por la Libertad de la Información)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>Fue entonces cuando las cosas empezaron a complicarse. ICE finalmente le asignó a Luna una cama en la unidad de hombres s en el centro de detención de Otay Mesa.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Diez días después de que llegó a la frontera pidiendo ayuda, un oficial del Servicio y Ciudadanía de los Estados Unidos realizó una entrevista de “miedo creíble”. Fue entonces cuando Luna dijo que a veces también se vestía como mujer. El oficial denominó su historia como verídica.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Semanas más tarde, una organización latina que apoya a las personas trangénero con sede cerca de Los Ángeles llamada Las Crisantemas envió una carta de apoyo a la corte de inmigración reconociendo a Luna como una mujer trans.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Sin embargo, Luna nunca fue trasladada a una unidad de detención para mujeres transgénera, a pesar de que en 2015 ICE había acordado mejorar los estándares para las detenidas transgénera, incluido el acceso a unidades separadas de la población en general.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[pullquote size=\"medium\" align=\"right\" citation=\"Luna Guzmán\"]‘Aquí te tratan como un criminal, solamente por eso. Se siente bien feo, te sientes como un zero a la izquierda’[/pullquote]\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“No la pusieron bajo la custodia protectora que requieren sus propios estándares”, dijo Allegra Love, abogada del Santa Fe Dreamers Project, quien ha representado a cientos de mujeres transgénera detenidas en los últimos años. Ella nunca fue la abogada de Luna, pero le pedimos que revisara su caso luego de que KQED demandó a ICE para obtener sus registros de inmigración.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“Si alguien les dice: ‘oye, mira, soy trans, tengo disforia de género. No soy del género que crees que soy’, entonces el gobierno tiene esta responsabilidad consentida por su propia mano de tomar eso en serio y proteger a las personas de un mayor peligro”, dijo Love.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Luna pasó meses en la unidad de hombres antes de que su caso de asilo pudiera ser escuchado por completo, meses en los que dijo que los otros detenidos la acosaban y menospreciaban repetidamente.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_11846829\" class=\"wp-caption alignnone\" style=\"max-width: 800px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"wp-image-11846829 size-medium\" src=\"https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/10/2020/11/RS45759__MG_0162-qut-800x533.jpg\" alt=\"Varias rejas de seguridad rodean el centro de detención de migrantes Otay Mesa, ubicado al este de San Diego, donde Luna Guzmán fue detenida por ocho meses mientras esperaba presentar su solicitud para recibir asilo.\" width=\"800\" height=\"533\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2020/11/RS45759__MG_0162-qut-800x533.jpg 800w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2020/11/RS45759__MG_0162-qut-1020x680.jpg 1020w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2020/11/RS45759__MG_0162-qut-160x107.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2020/11/RS45759__MG_0162-qut-1536x1024.jpg 1536w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2020/11/RS45759__MG_0162-qut.jpg 1920w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 800px) 100vw, 800px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Varias rejas de seguridad rodean el centro de detención de migrantes Otay Mesa, ubicado al este de San Diego, donde Luna Guzmán fue detenida por ocho meses mientras esperaba presentar su solicitud para recibir asilo. \u003ccite>(Erin Siegal McIntyre)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003ch3>Tribunal de inmigración aplazado, largos meses detenida\u003c/h3>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Noviembre de 2017\u003c/strong>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Luna compareció ante la jueza de inmigración Olga Attia, asignada para la corte de inmgiración en 2017 por el entonces fiscal general Jeff Sessions. A Luna se le asignó un intérprete, pero ningún abogado. Si hubiera querido uno, habría tenido que encontrarlo y pagarlo por su propia cuenta.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>En las grabaciones de audio de las audiencias en la corte de inmigración, Luna le dijo a la jueza que estaba preocupada de estar detenida durante tanto tiempo.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“Es que no siempre me dan la medicina que necesito para la enfermedad crónica que yo sufro”, dijo Luna.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“Desafortunadamente, no tengo jurisdicción sobre tales asuntos,” le dijo Attia. “Debe informar a los oficiales de detención de esto”.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Enero de 2018\u003c/strong>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Luna estuvo detenida durante cinco meses antes de poder presentar oficialmente su solicitud de asilo a la jueza Attia. Luego, la jueza le informó que no había citas disponibles para conocer la profundidad de su caso hasta otros cinco meses más.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Febrero de 2018\u003c/strong>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Después de seis meses detenida, Luna era elegible para salir bajo fianza. Los abogados de ICE no se opusieron puesto que ella no tenía antecedentes penales. La jueza fijó la fianza en 4,500 dólares, sin embargo, como muchos solicitantes de asilo, Luna no tenía forma de pagar esa cantidad de dinero.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“A mí me hace daño psicológicamente. Yo nunca he estado detenida, su señoría”, dijo Luna.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Marzo de 2018\u003c/strong>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Incapaz de tolerar su detención en una unidad de hombres, Luna realizó algo que jamás pensó que podría. Renunció a su caso de asilo y pidió ser deportada de inmediato.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“Voy a cumplir 8 meses de estar detenida en el centro de detención”, dijo Luna a través de un intérprete. “Me siento sola. No tengo palabras para explicarle, su señoría”.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Incluso cuando Attia aceptó el retiro de la solicitud de asilo, no estaba claro que la jueza entendía que Luna era transgénera. Después de que el intérprete explicó que Luna se refería a sí misma con el pronombre femenino, Attia siguió llamando a Luna “señor”.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“Sólo puedo imaginar la pérdida de esperanza que alguien experimenta cuando huye de un país donde la razón por la que su vida está en peligro es porque sus instituciones se niegan a reconocer quiénes son”, dijo Love, la abogada que ha representado a decenas de personas trans detenidas provenientes de Centroamérica. “Luego llegar con un sentimiento de esperanza a un lugar donde creen que van a recibir un trato diferente, y luego que los agentes del orden y los jueces, oficiales de la corte, los rechacen inmediatamente también”.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Si Luna hubiera decidido permanecer detenida y continuar con su solicitud de asilo, las probabilidades estaban en su contra especialmente sin un abogado. Durante el último año de la administración de Barack Obama, se denegó el 55 por ciento de todas las peticiones de asilo. Bajo la administración de Donald Trump, esas cifras subieron a un récord del 72 por ciento en 2020, según datos del proyecto TRAC de la Universidad de Syracuse.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Para los solicitantes de asilo de Guatemala, la tasa es aún mayor: el 85.8 por ciento de esas solicitudes son rechazadas.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Abril de 2018\u003c/strong>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>En el avión chárter de ICE para transportar a Luna y otros detenidos de regreso a Guatemala, ella recuerda que tuvo un ataque de pánico, temblaba tanto que apenas podía caminar sobre la pista cuando aterrizó en Ciudad de Guatemala.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Luna dijo también que fue a quedarse con su hermana, quien se había casado con un cristiano evangélico. Sin embargo, después de unos días, su hermana le dio algo de dinero y le pidió que se marchara.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“No tienes un hogar conmigo como una hermana”, recordó Luna que su hermana le dijo. “Solo como un hermano”.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Noviembre de 2018\u003c/strong>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Luna se fue de Guatemala y poco a poco regresó a la frontera entre Estados Unidos y México, con la esperanza de encontrar un camino de regreso a California. Conocimos a Luna mientras se hospedaba en Casa del Migrante, un refugio para migrantes en Tijuana.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[pullquote size=\"medium\" align=\"right\" citation=\"Luna Guzmán\"]“Soy una mujer transgénera, pero no toda mi vida voy a vivir vestido como un niño. Yo quiero que el día de mañana todas las personas que me conocen digan , ‘Luna. Triunfó. Luna luchó por sus sueños y los alcanzó”.[/pullquote]\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Luna dijo que estaba tratando de seguir adelante como lavaplatos en un restaurante donde el dueño hacía comentarios homofóbicos. También luchaba por encontrar una clínica donde obtener su medicamento contra el VIH sin una identificación mexicana.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Las suelas de sus zapatos se estaban desgastando y vestía una camiseta de fútbol, su cabello era muy corto.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“Soy una mujer transgénera, pero no toda mi vida voy a vivir vestido como un niño. Yo quiero que el día de mañana todas las personas que me conocen digan , ‘Luna. Triunfo. Luna luchó por sus sueños y los alcanzó”.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_11846832\" class=\"wp-caption alignnone\" style=\"max-width: 800px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"wp-image-11846832 size-medium\" src=\"https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/10/2020/11/RS45762__MG_2087-qut-800x533.jpg\" alt='Luna Guzmán posa enfrente de un mural en Tijuana. Cuando era pequeña, ella se disfrazaba como una mariposa. Mientras estaba detenida, dijo que se sentía como \"una mariposa con las alas rotas\".' width=\"800\" height=\"533\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2020/11/RS45762__MG_2087-qut-800x533.jpg 800w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2020/11/RS45762__MG_2087-qut-1020x680.jpg 1020w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2020/11/RS45762__MG_2087-qut-160x107.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2020/11/RS45762__MG_2087-qut-1536x1024.jpg 1536w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2020/11/RS45762__MG_2087-qut.jpg 1920w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 800px) 100vw, 800px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Luna Guzmán posa enfrente de un mural en Tijuana. Cuando era pequeña, ella se disfrazaba como una mariposa. Mientras estaba detenida, dijo que se sentía como “una mariposa con las alas rotas”. \u003ccite>(Erin Siegal McIntyre)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Enero de 2019\u003c/strong>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Un mes después, Luna mandó un mensaje vía WhatsApp para decir que sabía que su sueño de venir a California probablemente terminó porque había renunciado a su solicitud de asilo el año anterior.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Pero luego, unas semanas más tarde, envió un vídeo suyo, de pie, en un lugar con mucho viento, y con el muro fronterizo detrás de ella.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“¡Mira!” exclamó Luna. “¡Crucé! Te veré en San Francisco, junto al puente Golden Gate para tomar un café”.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>WhatsApp se mantuvo en silencio durante semanas.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Febrero de 2019\u003c/strong>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Recibimos finalmente una llamada que debimos pagar del centro de detención de Otay Mesa. Luna dijo a través de la línea telefónica desafinada que estaba en la misma celda y en la misma cama en la que se había quedado el año pasado.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“Le quita las alas a una mariposa, así me siento yo ahora”, dijo Luna. “He sido una prisionera en mi propio cuerpo, ahora soy una prisionera aquí”.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>12 de marzo de 2019\u003c/strong>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Después de que Luna estuvo detenida durante unas seis semanas, ICE nos concedió permiso para entrevistarla en persona en Otay Mesa.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Seguimos a un guardia a una sala de espera con otras familias. Un letrero sobre el escritorio de metal gris de un guardia decía: “la esperanza es el ancla del alma. Sé agradecido”.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Cuando llamaron nuestros nombres, pasamos por una puerta pesada hasta donde Luna estaba sentada en una pequeña habitación. Vestía sandalias Crocs azules, calcetines marrones y un uniforme azul con la palabra “detenida” estampada en la espalda con letras blancas.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_11846827\" class=\"wp-caption alignnone\" style=\"max-width: 800px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"wp-image-11846827 size-medium\" src=\"https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/10/2020/11/RS45757__MG_0143-qut-800x533.jpg\" alt=\"Sasha Khokha de The California Report entrevistó a Luna Guzmán dentro del centro de detención de migrantes Otay Mesa en marzo de 2019.\" width=\"800\" height=\"533\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2020/11/RS45757__MG_0143-qut-800x533.jpg 800w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2020/11/RS45757__MG_0143-qut-1020x680.jpg 1020w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2020/11/RS45757__MG_0143-qut-160x107.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2020/11/RS45757__MG_0143-qut-1536x1024.jpg 1536w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2020/11/RS45757__MG_0143-qut.jpg 1920w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 800px) 100vw, 800px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Sasha Khokha de The California Report entrevistó a Luna Guzmán dentro del centro de detención de migrantes Otay Mesa en marzo de 2019. \u003ccite>(Erin Siegal McIntyre.)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>Se veía demacrada y exhausta, pero sus ojos aún brillaban. Su cabello era muy corto. Luna dijo que tuvo que cortárselo todo después de que un hombre le quitara un trozo de cabello con una navaja.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“Me dijo que no toleraba a los homosexuales y me cortó con la navaja”, dijo Luna. “De un rastrillo de una rasuradora me cortó mi cabello. Fue muy duro para mí porque me dijo que si yo me quejaba con los oficiales me iba a ir peor”.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Luna dijo además que eso sucedió en el Centro Correccional Metropolitano, una cárcel federal en San Diego, donde estuvo detenida durante aproximadamente una semana después de que los agentes de la patrulla fronteriza la recogieran. Fue acusada allí del delito federal de reingreso ilegal a Estados Unidos, luego de que el presidente Trump intensificara los enjuiciamientos bajo una política de “cero tolerancia”.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Pero el acoso sexual en el centro de detención de ICE fue aún peor, agregó Luna.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“Aquí hay personas que nos tocan el trasero, que nos tocan las bubis que nos miran cuando nos estamos bañando”, dijo Luna. “ Quieren que nos enseñen sus partes. Yo no quiero estar más tiempo acá. Yo sé que si yo me meto una queja, no me van a hacer caso. Yo se que no me van a hacer caso”.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Además, Luna dijo que no le alcanzaba el dinero para comprarse champú o bocadillos en la tienda del centro de detención. Agregó que otros presos se ofrecieron a comprárselos a cambio de favores sexuales.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“Yo no voy a hacer algo que no me guste por una sopa que vale 60 centavos de dólar”, dijo Luna. Yo no voy a estar haciendo cosas malas, tener sexo con nadie acá. Toda la discriminación que vivimos allá afuera, acá es peor porque acá es otro mundo. Acá es un mundo de la discriminación y la homofobia y el acoso es súper grandísimo. Es peor que allá afuera. Porque acá no tienes para dónde ir, acá está todo cerrado”.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Un estudio en 2018 encontró que los inmigrantes LGBTQ tienen casi 100 veces más probabilidades de ser acosados o agredidos sexualmente durante una detención de ICE.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“He sido prisionera en mi propio cuerpo, ahora soy una prisionera aquí”, dijo Luna.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Luna dijo que no quería llorar delante de nosotros. Quería ser la persona fuerte que nos había impresionado con su coraje y tenacidad cuando la conocimos en Tijuana cuatro meses atrás.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Pero después de nuestra entrevista nos asomamos por una ventana de la pequeña habitación. Tenía la cabeza sobre la mesa y sollozaba.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_11846828\" class=\"wp-caption alignnone\" style=\"max-width: 800px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"wp-image-11846828 size-medium\" src=\"https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/10/2020/11/RS45758__MG_0156-qut-800x533.jpg\" alt=\"Luna Guzmán llora cabizbaja después de su entrevista con las reporteras Sasha Khokha y Erin Siegal McIntyre.\" width=\"800\" height=\"533\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2020/11/RS45758__MG_0156-qut-800x533.jpg 800w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2020/11/RS45758__MG_0156-qut-1020x680.jpg 1020w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2020/11/RS45758__MG_0156-qut-160x107.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2020/11/RS45758__MG_0156-qut-1536x1024.jpg 1536w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2020/11/RS45758__MG_0156-qut.jpg 1920w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 800px) 100vw, 800px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Luna Guzmán llora cabizbaja después de su entrevista con las reporteras Sasha Khokha y Erin Siegal McIntyre. \u003ccite>(Erin Siegal McIntyre. )\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>El segundo período de detención de Luna solo duró un par de meses. ICE trató de deportarla lo antes posible: había reingresado a Estados Unidos escalando la valla fronteriza y violó la prohibición de cinco años de reingreso que se le impuso cuando fue deportada por primera vez. Ahora se le prohibió regresar al país en 20 años.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Esta era la segunda vez que estaba detenida y todavía no tenía abogado. Nadie que le ofrezca una alternativa al asilo, algo llamado “Retención de la Expulsión”, que ha permitido que algunas mujeres trans de Centroamérica se queden en Estados Unidos.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“Si ella se hubiera asociado con un buen abogado de asilo, ahora mismo estaríamos teniendo una conversación realmente diferente sobre ella”, dijo Love. “Podríamos estar hablando de ella ahora en 2020, inscribiéndose en una universidad comunitaria o, ya sabes, consiguiendo su primer apartamento o, de hecho, obteniendo su residencia legal permanente en Estados Unidos y una green card o permiso de residencia. Pero en cambio, no se le proporcionó el proceso que se merecía”.\u003c/p>\n\u003ch3>“No es seguro que te quedes en Guatemala”\u003c/h3>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Marzo 27 de 2019\u003c/strong>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Luna fue deportada por segunda vez a la Ciudad de Guatemala. KQED contrató a un equipo de filmación para encontrarse con ella cuando bajara del avión.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Contó cuatro dólares estadounidense de una bolsa de plástico marcada como “propiedad personal”, dinero ganado trabajando en la lavandería del centro de detención. Se pasó la mano por la cara, como queriendo que todo desapareciera.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Luego se dirigió a la Asociación Lambda, una organización LGBTQ en la Ciudad de Guatemala que ayuda a los deportados, que después de escuchar su historia, un empleado de admisión le dijo a Luna que no era seguro quedarse en Guatemala.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“Su perfil es de alto riesgo”, dijo.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>No necesitaba recordarle sobre las mujeres trans que fueron asesinadas recientemente después de haber sido deportadas a Centroamérica. El empleado de admisión dijo también que le preocupaba que los proxenetas en su ciudad natal pudieran tener conexiones en la Ciudad de Guatemala y rastrearla.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Consiguió una casa segura en un lugar secreto, pero Luna decidió irse después de pasar una noche allí. Se negó a sentirse encerrada de nuevo.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>A estas alturas llevábamos cinco meses informando sobre la historia de Luna. Algunos oyentes transgéneros de California Report en Modesto que escucharon una de las historias, la contactaron y le enviaron 80 dólares, dinero que la ayudó a salir de Guatemala nuevamente y emprender otro viaje de regreso a la frontera. También organizaron un \u003cem>drag show\u003c/em> dedicado a Luna.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>https://www.youtube.com/embed/XkR9vHtM9T8\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Abril y julio de 2019\u003c/strong>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Después de unos meses más, Luna encontró la manera de salir de Guatemala y regresar a México. Solicitó una visa humanitaria para quedarse temporalmente y encontró trabajo haciendo tortillas en un restaurante de Tapachula. Conoció a algunos nuevos amigos, otros migrantes transgéneros.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Pronto, llena de valor por sus nuevos amigos, decidió vestirse de mujer nuevamente para cenar con ellos en un café local.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>La mañana siguiente, a las 6 a.m. llamó llorando. Dijo que había sido violada por cinco hombres armados, que la secuestraron mientras esperaba un taxi después de cenar. Dijo que la golpearon y la patearon en los riñones, donde se estaba recuperando de una reciente infección.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“¿Por qué tengo que sufrir tanto? ¿Por qué la vida es injusta conmigo?”, sollozó Luna. “¿Por qué cuando demuestro la persona que soy, siempre me va mal, eso es lo que no entiendo”.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Luna dijo que tenía demasiado miedo de presentar una demanda ante la policía mexicana, porque probablemente no harían más que reírse de ella y decir cosas homofóbicas. Me envió una publicación en Facebook sobre la muerte de un activista gay, Juan Ruiz Nicolás, quien fue asesinado en Tapachula, el pueblo donde se hospedaba cerca de la frontera con Guatemala.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[pullquote size=\"small\" align=\"right\" citation=\"Allegra Love, abogada con Santa Fe Dreamers Project\"]‘Si ella se hubiera asociado con un buen abogado de asilo, ahora mismo estaríamos teniendo una conversación realmente diferente sobre ella. Podríamos estar hablando de ella ahora en 2020, inscribirse en un colegio comunitario o, ya sabes, conseguir su primer apartamento o, de hecho, conseguir su residencia legal permanente en Estados Unidos’.[/pullquote]\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Como no reportó la violación a nadie, es difícil confirmar que Luna fue agredida. Esto es parte de la paradoja de los solicitantes de asilo. Se espera que documenten y prueben las cosas horribles que les han sucedido, pero con demasiada frecuencia, el acto de demandar estos abusos podría ponerlos en mayor peligro.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Por supuesto, como periodistas, hemos hecho todo lo posible para examinar su historia. KQED incluso demandó al Departamento de Seguridad Nacional para obtener los registros de Luna. Pero cuando se trata de lo que sucedió a Luna en Guatemala o México, no hay forma de probar el tráfico y la violencia. Llevaba tanto tiempo en tránsito, viviendo en la calle y en refugios, que tiene poca documentación de su vida. Aún así, la historia de Luna es consistente con lo que han encontrado los defensores y las investigaciones sobre el trato de los detenidos inmigrantes transgéneros y portadores de VIH. Mucho de esto también se refleja en su solicitud de asilo y en sus registros médicos.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Luna finalmente recibió una visa humanitaria temporal y una tarjeta de identificación mexicana, válida por un año. El gobierno mexicano la envió de regreso a Tijuana, a una casa segura para refugiados LGBTQ llamada Casa Arcoíris.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_11846833\" class=\"wp-caption alignnone\" style=\"max-width: 800px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"wp-image-11846833 size-medium\" src=\"https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/10/2020/11/RS45763__MG_2127-qut-800x533.jpg\" alt=\"Luna Guzmán camina por las calles de Tijuana con sus amistades de Casa Arcoíris, un albergue para refugiados LGBTQ provenientes de todo el mundo que esperan en México para recibir asilo en los Estados Unidos.\" width=\"800\" height=\"533\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2020/11/RS45763__MG_2127-qut-800x533.jpg 800w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2020/11/RS45763__MG_2127-qut-1020x680.jpg 1020w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2020/11/RS45763__MG_2127-qut-160x107.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2020/11/RS45763__MG_2127-qut-1536x1024.jpg 1536w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2020/11/RS45763__MG_2127-qut.jpg 1920w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 800px) 100vw, 800px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Luna Guzmán camina por las calles de Tijuana con sus amistades de Casa Arcoíris, un albergue para refugiados LGBTQ provenientes de todo el mundo que esperan en México para recibir asilo en los Estados Unidos. \u003ccite>(Erin Siegal McIntyre)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Octubre de 2019\u003c/strong>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>En octubre decidimos volver a visitarla en Tijuana para saber cómo estaba. Pero no pudimos encontrarnos con ella en la casa donde se quedaba porque querían mantener la ubicación en secreto.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Nos encontramos con Luna y uno de sus nuevos compañeros refugiados en un enorme supermercado donde compraban frijoles secos, zanahorias y repollo. Cada uno de ellos se turnaron para cocinar un platillo de su país de origen para los otros habitantes.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Une amige no binario de Honduras, que no quiso dar su nombre por seguridad, dijo que Luna es bien querida en la casa.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“Se ha encariñado con todo el mundo. Todo el mundo la aprecia mucho”, dijo une compañere refugiados de Luna. \u003cspan style=\"color: #ff0000\"> \u003c/span>“Ha compartido su historia. La comunidad LGBT nos hace una conexión como familia”.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Esa comunidad, esa estabilidad, cambiaron las cosas para Luna. Llevaba vestido y lápiz labial con más frecuencia, se reía más con sus nuevos amigos.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_11846825\" class=\"wp-caption alignnone\" style=\"max-width: 800px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"wp-image-11846825 size-medium\" src=\"https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/10/2020/11/Luna_diptych-800x632.jpg\" alt=\"En Tijuana, Luna Guzmán ha logrado expresar y explorar su identidad de género con más libertad.\" width=\"800\" height=\"632\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2020/11/Luna_diptych-800x632.jpg 800w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2020/11/Luna_diptych-1020x805.jpg 1020w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2020/11/Luna_diptych-160x126.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2020/11/Luna_diptych.jpg 1368w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 800px) 100vw, 800px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">En Tijuana, Luna Guzmán ha logrado expresar y explorar su identidad de género con más libertad. \u003ccite>(Courtesy of Luna Guzmán)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>Pero su semblante cambió cuando nos llevó a ver la sección de la valla fronteriza por donde cruzó la última vez que vino a California. Señaló ardillas y libélulas que volaban entre los listones de la cerca, entre países, sin siquiera saberlo.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“Es algo que los humanos se nos limita a veces, verdad, que no tenemos esa libertad”, dijo Luna.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Le preguntamos qué pensaba mientras miraba a través de los barrotes de la cerca hacia California.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“Es un muro que mata sueños, que quita todo”, dijo Luna “Yo dije de este muro para acá, voy a dejar todo mi pasado. No a voltear ni a ver. Aquí es el nuevo inicio, aquí volví a nacer. Eso es California, y no se va a ir. Algún día yo voy a ir ahí. No sé si hasta cuando sea el 2050 o 2100 pero voy a ir ahí algún día”.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_11846830\" class=\"wp-caption alignnone\" style=\"max-width: 800px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"wp-image-11846830 size-medium\" src=\"https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/10/2020/11/RS45760__MG_1096-qut-800x533.jpg\" alt=\"Luna Guzmán mira a través de la valla fronteriza en Tijuana, desde el mismo sitio en donde cruzó la frontera en enero de 2019 cuando intentaba entrar a California por segunda vez. Había sido deportada anteriormente luego de que abandonó su solicitud de asilo ya que no podía aguantar más meses largos de sufrir acosos y abusos en el centro de detención.\" width=\"800\" height=\"533\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2020/11/RS45760__MG_1096-qut-800x533.jpg 800w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2020/11/RS45760__MG_1096-qut-1020x680.jpg 1020w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2020/11/RS45760__MG_1096-qut-160x107.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2020/11/RS45760__MG_1096-qut-1536x1024.jpg 1536w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2020/11/RS45760__MG_1096-qut.jpg 1920w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 800px) 100vw, 800px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Luna Guzmán mira a través de la valla fronteriza en Tijuana, desde el mismo sitio en donde cruzó la frontera en enero de 2019 cuando intentaba entrar a California por segunda vez. Había sido deportada anteriormente luego de que abandonó su solicitud de asilo ya que no podía aguantar más meses largos de sufrir acosos y abusos en el centro de detención. \u003ccite>(Erin Siegal McIntyre)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003ch3>“Gracias por contar mi historia”\u003c/h3>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Marzo de 2020\u003c/strong>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Cuando el brote de COVID-19 llegó a México, Luna nos dejó un mensaje de voz. Planeaba quedarse en un albergue con una amiga en las afueras de Ensenada.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Hablamos sobre su alivio por estar lejos del centro de detención de Otay Mesa que resultó tener uno de los mayores brotes de COVID-19. Irónicamente, ser deportada pudo haberle salvado la vida.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Por otro lado, si todavía estuviera detenida, podría haber sido entregada a un patrocinador en EE.UU., como lo han estado algunos otros detenidos transgénera, para evitar el riesgo de contraer coronavirus.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Pero un mes después, en abril, Luna dejó una mensaje de voz. Su respiración era tan pesada y astrosa que era difícil de entender. Dijo que estaba en una unidad de cuidados intensivos del hospital público de Tijuana, enferma de COVID-19. Estaban a punto de ponerle un respirador.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“Gracias por todo”, dijo Luna con voz ronca. “Por querer contar mi historia. Ojalá la gente recuerde un poco de mí”.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Luego, como ha sucedido tantas veces en los últimos dos años, la conversación con Luna en WhatsApp se quedó en silencio durante semanas.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Finalmente, luego de varias semanas en el hospital, Luna dejó otro mensaje desde su cama de hospital. La habían desconectado del ventilador.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“Ay, Dios, yo pensé que iba a morir”, suspiró. “Pero no, aquí la pinche Luna está todavía aquí. Aquí está todavía resistiendo todo esto. Tengo mucho que vivir, mucho que expresar todavía. Soy una mujer fuerte. He sobrevivido todo, puedo sobrevivir esto.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[aside label ='Historias Relacionadas' tag='kqed-en-espanol']\u003cbr>\n\u003cstrong>Noviembre de 2020\u003c/strong>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Luna nos dejó un mensaje de voz diciendo que el gobierno mexicano acaba de extender su visa humanitaria por un año más. Para ella era complicado trabajar y pagar alquiler en Tijuana. Tiene síntomas persistentes de coronavirus que incluyen fatiga, dificultad para respirar y dolor en las cuerdas vocales. Su sistema inmunológico también estaba luchando para combatir el VIH. Le preocupa que su cuerpo no sea lo suficientemente fuerte para combatir otro virus, por lo que se queda en casa lo más posible para evitar volver a infectarse con COVID-19.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Luna dijo también que ella y otros migrantes están celebrando la victoria de Joe Biden y esperan que él cumpla su promesa de campaña de “poner fin a las políticas de asilo perjudiciales del presidente Trump”, que incluían dificultar la búsqueda de protección para los migrantes LGBTQ.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Luna dijo que está lista para solicitar asilo en Estados Unidos nuevamente si las cosas cambian bajo el nuevo gobierno.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“Aquí estamos echándole ganas a la vida. Somos guerrilleras y hemos pasado por momentos difíciles. Tenemos esperanzas siempre, siempre sonriendole a la vida”, dijo Luna.\u003c/p>\n\u003chr>\n\u003cp>\u003cem>Este reporte fue traducido por el periodista Kervy Robles y editado por la periodista \u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/author/amorga\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Adriana Morga\u003c/a>. \u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/author/ccabreralomeli\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Carlos Cabrera-Lomelí\u003c/a> y \u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/author/lblanco\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Lina Blanco\u003c/a> también contribuyeron a esta versión en español. \u003c/em>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cem>Este proyecto contó con el apoyo de una subvención de la fundación \u003ca href=\"https://www.iwmf.org/\">International Women’s Media\u003c/a>. Su programa de Subvenciones para reportar las historias de las mujeres recibe fondos de la organización Secular Society. \u003ca href=\"https://www.imdb.com/name/nm10656367/\">Zoey Luna\u003c/a>, actriz transgénero vanguardista, dio su voz para el doblaje de Luna Guzmán en el audio \u003c/em>\u003cem>documental.\u003c/em>\u003cbr>\n[ad fullwidth]\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[ad floatright]\u003c/p>\n",
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"excerpt": "Hemos seguido la historia de Luna Guzmán por dos años, desde que llegó a Tijuana luego de haber abandonado su vieja vida en Guatemala con el sueño de llegar a California.",
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"title": "‘Una mariposa con las alas rotas’: La búsqueda de una solicitante de asilo transgénera para llegar a California | KQED",
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"headline": "‘Una mariposa con las alas rotas’: La búsqueda de una solicitante de asilo transgénera para llegar a California",
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"nprByline": "\u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/author/sasha-khokha\">Sasha Khokha\u003c/a> and \u003ca href=\"http://erin-mcintyre.com/\">Erin Siegal McIntyre\u003c/a>",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003cp>\u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/news/11844742/a-butterfly-with-my-wings-cut-off-a-transgender-asylum-seekers-quest-to-come-to-california\">\u003cem>Read in English\u003c/em>\u003c/a>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cem>Nota de editorx: Pese a que la Real Academia Española (RAE) específica el uso del término transgénero para describir y abarcar todas las experiencias trans dentro del arco de la identidad de género, hemos decidido utilizar la palabra transgénera con la intención de usar un término que mejor corresponda a las experiencias e identidad de Luna.\u003c/em>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Cuando cumplió 15 años, como tantas chicas en su pueblo en Guatemala, Luna Guzmán celebró con una quinceañera.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“Me prestaron el vestido de una compañera porque yo lloraba. Cada vez que íbamos a la escuela teníamos que pasar en frente de una tienda donde habían vestidos de novia y de quinceañera”, dijo Luna. “Yo siempre me quedaba viendo, hasta tocaba el vidrio”.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>El vestido que pidió prestado era de color turquesa, con una falda larga. Se quitó sus zapatos tenis, se puso los tacones y una tiara y empezó a bailar con sus amigos.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Había un pastel, botellas de champán y chambelanes, chicos que se vistieron en trajes para acompañarla a la fiesta secreta en casa de un amigo. Ninguno de sus parientes estaba allí porque no podían imaginar a Luna como una niña transgénera.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"content": "‘La maestra siempre hablaba con mi mamá. Le decía, ‘¿Oye por qué no puedes cambiar a tu hijo? ¿No los puedes llevar con un psicólogo? ¿No lo puedes llevar con un psiquiatra? Hace ver mal a mi escuela’",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Instantes de esa fiesta de cumpleaños perduran en la memoria de Luna como un tiempo en su vida en el cual sintió verdaderamente el placer y la libertad. Era algo para saborear una y otra vez conforme iniciaba la década siguiente, cuando vestía camisetas de fútbol y trataba de parecerse al chico que sabía no llevaba por dentro. Mientras lidiaba con una violencia brutal, decidió tomar el tremendo riesgo de dejar atrás todo en Guatemala y tratar de encontrar una nueva vida en California. Las memorias eran un lugar en donde ella podía imaginarse a salvo, siendo ella misma.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Conocimos a Luna en un refugio para migrantes en Tijuana dos años atrás y desde entonces nos hemos mantenido en contacto con ella, durante su viaje por la frontera, donde pasó meses detenida por el Servicio de Inmigración y Control de Aduanas (ICE por sus siglas en inglés), y su búsqueda por el amparo en México. Pasamos semanas tratando desesperadamente de localizarla en una unidad de cuidados intensivos después de que ella dejara un mensaje de voz en el que había sido diagnosticada con un caso severo de COVID-19. “Gracias por contar mi historia”, dijo con voz ronca y entrecortada, apenas se reconocía su voz . “Gracias por todo. Por contar mi historia. Si muero, ojalá que la gente un día se acuerde de mí”.\u003c/p>\u003c/p>\u003cp>\u003cspan class='utils-parseShortcode-shortcodes-__youtubeShortcode__embedYoutube'>\n \u003cspan class='utils-parseShortcode-shortcodes-__youtubeShortcode__embedYoutubeInside'>\n \u003ciframe\n loading='lazy'\n class='utils-parseShortcode-shortcodes-__youtubeShortcode__youtubePlayer'\n type='text/html'\n src='//www.youtube.com/embed/8-aYksXNNUA'\n title='//www.youtube.com/embed/8-aYksXNNUA'\n allowfullscreen='true'\n style='border:0;'>\u003c/iframe>\n \u003c/span>\n \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\u003cp>\u003ch3>‘¿No puedes cambiar a tu hijo?’\u003c/h3>\n\u003cp>Luna creció en las afueras de una pequeña ciudad en el área central de Guatemala, en una casa construida por palos y periódicos. Su madre vendía papas fritas en un carrito de comida y Luna ayudó a cuidar a sus tres hermanos, uno de ellos con discapacidades del desarrollo. Su padre no formó parte de su vida.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Luna contó que era una voraz lectora, pasando horas en la biblioteca de su ciudad. En la escuela jugaba a disfrazarse con otras chicas. Luna se transformaba en una mariposa, sus alas estaban hechas de pedazos de cartón que encontraba en las calles.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“La maestra siempre hablaba con mi mamá. Le decía, ‘¿Oye por qué no puedes cambiar a tu hijo? ¿No lo puedes llevar con un psicólogo? ¿No lo puedes llevar con un psiquiatra? Hace ver mal a mi escuela”.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Luna dijo que su madre la defendió al principio. Cuando confesó ser gay a los 14 años, su mamá brindó con una copa de agua de jamaica. Pero a medida que Luna crecía, su madre desaprobaba los vestidos y los tacones. Su hijo, ¿vistiéndose como una mujer? Para ella, eso iba en contra de la naturaleza. Entonces Luna volvió a vestir con camisetas de fútbol y pantalones cortos.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“Esos desprecios ahora los entiendo”, dijo Luna. “Ella tal vez quería protegerme”.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_11849344\" class=\"wp-caption alignnone\" style=\"max-width: 800px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"wp-image-11849344 size-medium\" src=\"https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/10/2020/12/RS45761__MG_2008_crop-qut_v2-800x613.jpg\" alt=\"A lo largo de su vida, Luna Guzmán ha luchado para ser aceptada como mujer transgénera. Ella ha dicho que ha sido víctima de violencia brutal cuando demuestra su verdadera identidad de género como mujer.\" width=\"800\" height=\"613\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2020/12/RS45761__MG_2008_crop-qut_v2-800x613.jpg 800w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2020/12/RS45761__MG_2008_crop-qut_v2-1020x781.jpg 1020w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2020/12/RS45761__MG_2008_crop-qut_v2-160x123.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2020/12/RS45761__MG_2008_crop-qut_v2-1536x1177.jpg 1536w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2020/12/RS45761__MG_2008_crop-qut_v2.jpg 1856w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 800px) 100vw, 800px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">A lo largo de su vida, Luna Guzmán ha luchado para ser aceptada como mujer transgénera. Ella ha dicho que ha sido víctima de violencia brutal cuando demuestra su verdadera identidad de género como mujer. \u003ccite>(Erin Siegal McIntyre)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Octubre de 2007\u003c/strong>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>A los 13 años, justo en la cúspide de su adolescencia, Luna fue violada por un hombre mayor que era su vecino.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“En un principio decía ¿por qué a mí? Explícame ¿por qué a mí? Si hay alguien ahí arriba por qué no me explicas”, suspiró Luna. “Pero nunca obtuve esa respuesta. Nunca la obtuve. Hasta hoy en día nunca la he tenido.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Luna contó que poco después fue forzada a integrar una red de tráfico de personas y labor sexual. Algunos hombres de mucho poder en su pueblo la obligaron a entrar a una red de tráfico de personas. ¿Los clientes? Hombres mayores que pagaban cientos de dólares estadounidenses para dormir con niños pequeños y niñas transgénera.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>El tráfico de personas y la explotación sexual están desenfrenados en Guatemala, y la Organización de las Naciones Unidas ha denunciado el alarmante número de menores de edad forzados a ingresar a redes de tráfico debido a la pobreza.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Pero no había nadie que la ayudara. Los proxenetas, según Luna, tenían vínculos con la policía y los principales funcionarios públicos de la ciudad. “Si alguien intentaba denunciarlos o presentar una denuncia, lo tiraban a la basura”, dijo Luna.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Muchos menores de edad en la red de tráfico de personas estaban infectados con enfermedades de transmisión sexual. Cuando tenía 16 años, Luna descubrió que era portadora del virus de inmunodeficiencia humana, conocido también como VIH. El acoso de la gente se intensificó en una ciudad donde ya se le había arrojado piedras y manifestado que se mantuviera alejada de los niños. Luna recuerda que, una vez, algunas personas la golpearon con tanta fuerza que le rompieron la clavícula y le dijeron que se comportara como un “hombre de verdad”.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“Mi pueblo es tan pequeño. No hay información sobre orientación sexual, sobre VIH”, dijo Luna. “No hay información de nada. Es muy cerrado (de mente)”.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Cuando cumplío 19 años, Luna cuenta que todavía la obligaban ocasionalmente a trabajar en la red de tráfico sexual. Al llegar a la edad adulta, comenzó a dar algunos pasos para recuperar el control de su vida. Se inscribió en un curso para convertirse en una bombero voluntaria.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_11849342\" class=\"wp-caption alignnone\" style=\"max-width: 800px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"wp-image-11849342 size-medium\" src=\"https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/10/2020/12/IMG_0768_v3-800x450.jpg\" alt=\"Luna Guzmán worked as a fire fighter in her home town. She said she left the department after experiencing harassment and homophobic threats.\" width=\"800\" height=\"450\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2020/12/IMG_0768_v3-800x450.jpg 800w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2020/12/IMG_0768_v3-1020x574.jpg 1020w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2020/12/IMG_0768_v3-160x90.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2020/12/IMG_0768_v3.jpg 1500w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 800px) 100vw, 800px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Luna Guzmán trabajó como bombera en su pueblo natal. Ella dice que abandonó la cuadrilla luego de sufrir acoso y amenazas homofóbicas. \u003ccite>(Cortesía de Luna Guzmán )\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Noviembre de 2014\u003c/strong>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Luna se graduó del programa de bomberos. Se sentía valerosa al rescatar personas de accidentes automovilísticos y apagar edificios en llamas. Pero luego, los otros bomberos descubrieron que era portadora del VIH y comenzaron a burlarse de ella con insultos homofóbicos.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Soñó entonces con una salida y puso su mirada en California. Había visto vídeos del enorme desfile del orgullo LGBTQ en San Francisco. Sabía que en California no podría ser despedida o desalojada por ser transgénera, tendría derecho a obtener una identificación con el nombre que deseaba y a usar el baño que coincida con su género. También esperaba poder ganar lo suficiente dinero para pagar su transición.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Enero de 2017\u003c/strong>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Luna dejó a su familia, el departamento de bomberos, los vecinos y los proxenetas. Tenía 22 años.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Se subió al famoso tren que los migrantes llaman La Bestia, que viaja de la frontera sur a la frontera norte de México. No usó vestidos en el viaje. Como ha hecho durante la mayor parte de su vida, mantuvo su cabello corto y usó camisetas y pantalones cortos de hombre por seguridad.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_11849343\" class=\"wp-caption alignnone\" style=\"max-width: 694px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"wp-image-11849343 size-full\" src=\"https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/10/2020/12/LUNA-TRAIN-2019-03-30-12-57-30_cropped_v2.jpg\" alt=\"Luna Guzmán rides a train heading from Guatemala through Mexico in 2017. She travelled with several other LGBTQ migrants and said that at one point they were attacked by men armed with machetes.\" width=\"694\" height=\"390\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2020/12/LUNA-TRAIN-2019-03-30-12-57-30_cropped_v2.jpg 694w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2020/12/LUNA-TRAIN-2019-03-30-12-57-30_cropped_v2-160x90.jpg 160w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 694px) 100vw, 694px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Luna Guzmán montada en un tren, el cual la llevaría de Guatemala a México en 2017. Viajó con otros migrantes LGBTQ y dijo que una vez fueron atacados por hombres armados con machetes. \u003ccite>(Cortesía de Luna Guzmán)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003ch3>Cruzando la Frontera Sin Un Respaldo Seguro\u003c/h3>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Agosto de 2017\u003c/strong>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Cuando Luna llegó al cruce fronterizo entre Estados Unidos y México en Otay Mesa, cerca de San Diego, le dijo a un oficial que estaba huyendo de la violencia homofóbica en Guatemala y que estaba pidiendo asilo. Sin embargo, sus esperanzas de sentirse protegida se desvanecieron al cruzar a Estados Unidos.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“Me entraron a unas oficinas. Y como a los 30 minutos me arrestaron en unas cadenas en las manos, en los pies, en la cintura”, dijo Luna. “Aquí te tratan como un criminal, solamente por eso. Se siente bien feo, te sientes como un zero a la izquierda”.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Los agentes fronterizos no determinan las solicitudes de asilo—eso sucede más tarde—pero son responsables de la transferencia de los detenidos en custodia de ICE, donde eventualmente hablan con un oficial encargado de procesar una petición de asilo. Sin embargo, los funcionarios fronterizos no marcaron la casilla en el formulario de admisión de Luna que indica que se identificó como LGBTQ, ni la casilla que indica que podría correr un mayor riesgo de abuso sexual durante su detención.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_11846822\" class=\"wp-caption alignnone\" style=\"max-width: 800px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"wp-image-11846822 size-medium\" src=\"https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/10/2020/11/Detainee-Assess-Form-screen-shot-800x490.png\" alt=\"U.S. Customs and Border Patrol “Detainee Assessment” form dated 8/9/2017. Although Luna Guzmán clearly told officials she feared homophobic violence, they did not check the box noting that she identified as LGBTQ.\" width=\"800\" height=\"490\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2020/11/Detainee-Assess-Form-screen-shot-800x490.png 800w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2020/11/Detainee-Assess-Form-screen-shot-1020x624.png 1020w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2020/11/Detainee-Assess-Form-screen-shot-160x98.png 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2020/11/Detainee-Assess-Form-screen-shot.png 1428w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 800px) 100vw, 800px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Un formulario titulado ‘Evaluación del detenido’ de la Oficina de Aduanas y Protección Fronteriza, con la fecha 9 de agosto, de 2017. Pese a que Luna Guzmán claramente le explicó a los oficiales que ella había sido un blanco de violencia homofóbica, ellos no marcaron la casilla para identificar a Luna como alguien LGBTQ. \u003ccite>(Solicitud de información bajo la Ley por la Libertad de la Información)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>Fue entonces cuando las cosas empezaron a complicarse. ICE finalmente le asignó a Luna una cama en la unidad de hombres s en el centro de detención de Otay Mesa.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Diez días después de que llegó a la frontera pidiendo ayuda, un oficial del Servicio y Ciudadanía de los Estados Unidos realizó una entrevista de “miedo creíble”. Fue entonces cuando Luna dijo que a veces también se vestía como mujer. El oficial denominó su historia como verídica.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Semanas más tarde, una organización latina que apoya a las personas trangénero con sede cerca de Los Ángeles llamada Las Crisantemas envió una carta de apoyo a la corte de inmigración reconociendo a Luna como una mujer trans.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Sin embargo, Luna nunca fue trasladada a una unidad de detención para mujeres transgénera, a pesar de que en 2015 ICE había acordado mejorar los estándares para las detenidas transgénera, incluido el acceso a unidades separadas de la población en general.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"content": "‘Aquí te tratan como un criminal, solamente por eso. Se siente bien feo, te sientes como un zero a la izquierda’",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“No la pusieron bajo la custodia protectora que requieren sus propios estándares”, dijo Allegra Love, abogada del Santa Fe Dreamers Project, quien ha representado a cientos de mujeres transgénera detenidas en los últimos años. Ella nunca fue la abogada de Luna, pero le pedimos que revisara su caso luego de que KQED demandó a ICE para obtener sus registros de inmigración.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“Si alguien les dice: ‘oye, mira, soy trans, tengo disforia de género. No soy del género que crees que soy’, entonces el gobierno tiene esta responsabilidad consentida por su propia mano de tomar eso en serio y proteger a las personas de un mayor peligro”, dijo Love.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Luna pasó meses en la unidad de hombres antes de que su caso de asilo pudiera ser escuchado por completo, meses en los que dijo que los otros detenidos la acosaban y menospreciaban repetidamente.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_11846829\" class=\"wp-caption alignnone\" style=\"max-width: 800px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"wp-image-11846829 size-medium\" src=\"https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/10/2020/11/RS45759__MG_0162-qut-800x533.jpg\" alt=\"Varias rejas de seguridad rodean el centro de detención de migrantes Otay Mesa, ubicado al este de San Diego, donde Luna Guzmán fue detenida por ocho meses mientras esperaba presentar su solicitud para recibir asilo.\" width=\"800\" height=\"533\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2020/11/RS45759__MG_0162-qut-800x533.jpg 800w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2020/11/RS45759__MG_0162-qut-1020x680.jpg 1020w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2020/11/RS45759__MG_0162-qut-160x107.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2020/11/RS45759__MG_0162-qut-1536x1024.jpg 1536w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2020/11/RS45759__MG_0162-qut.jpg 1920w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 800px) 100vw, 800px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Varias rejas de seguridad rodean el centro de detención de migrantes Otay Mesa, ubicado al este de San Diego, donde Luna Guzmán fue detenida por ocho meses mientras esperaba presentar su solicitud para recibir asilo. \u003ccite>(Erin Siegal McIntyre)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003ch3>Tribunal de inmigración aplazado, largos meses detenida\u003c/h3>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Noviembre de 2017\u003c/strong>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Luna compareció ante la jueza de inmigración Olga Attia, asignada para la corte de inmgiración en 2017 por el entonces fiscal general Jeff Sessions. A Luna se le asignó un intérprete, pero ningún abogado. Si hubiera querido uno, habría tenido que encontrarlo y pagarlo por su propia cuenta.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>En las grabaciones de audio de las audiencias en la corte de inmigración, Luna le dijo a la jueza que estaba preocupada de estar detenida durante tanto tiempo.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“Es que no siempre me dan la medicina que necesito para la enfermedad crónica que yo sufro”, dijo Luna.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“Desafortunadamente, no tengo jurisdicción sobre tales asuntos,” le dijo Attia. “Debe informar a los oficiales de detención de esto”.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Enero de 2018\u003c/strong>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Luna estuvo detenida durante cinco meses antes de poder presentar oficialmente su solicitud de asilo a la jueza Attia. Luego, la jueza le informó que no había citas disponibles para conocer la profundidad de su caso hasta otros cinco meses más.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Febrero de 2018\u003c/strong>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Después de seis meses detenida, Luna era elegible para salir bajo fianza. Los abogados de ICE no se opusieron puesto que ella no tenía antecedentes penales. La jueza fijó la fianza en 4,500 dólares, sin embargo, como muchos solicitantes de asilo, Luna no tenía forma de pagar esa cantidad de dinero.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“A mí me hace daño psicológicamente. Yo nunca he estado detenida, su señoría”, dijo Luna.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Marzo de 2018\u003c/strong>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Incapaz de tolerar su detención en una unidad de hombres, Luna realizó algo que jamás pensó que podría. Renunció a su caso de asilo y pidió ser deportada de inmediato.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“Voy a cumplir 8 meses de estar detenida en el centro de detención”, dijo Luna a través de un intérprete. “Me siento sola. No tengo palabras para explicarle, su señoría”.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Incluso cuando Attia aceptó el retiro de la solicitud de asilo, no estaba claro que la jueza entendía que Luna era transgénera. Después de que el intérprete explicó que Luna se refería a sí misma con el pronombre femenino, Attia siguió llamando a Luna “señor”.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“Sólo puedo imaginar la pérdida de esperanza que alguien experimenta cuando huye de un país donde la razón por la que su vida está en peligro es porque sus instituciones se niegan a reconocer quiénes son”, dijo Love, la abogada que ha representado a decenas de personas trans detenidas provenientes de Centroamérica. “Luego llegar con un sentimiento de esperanza a un lugar donde creen que van a recibir un trato diferente, y luego que los agentes del orden y los jueces, oficiales de la corte, los rechacen inmediatamente también”.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Si Luna hubiera decidido permanecer detenida y continuar con su solicitud de asilo, las probabilidades estaban en su contra especialmente sin un abogado. Durante el último año de la administración de Barack Obama, se denegó el 55 por ciento de todas las peticiones de asilo. Bajo la administración de Donald Trump, esas cifras subieron a un récord del 72 por ciento en 2020, según datos del proyecto TRAC de la Universidad de Syracuse.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Para los solicitantes de asilo de Guatemala, la tasa es aún mayor: el 85.8 por ciento de esas solicitudes son rechazadas.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Abril de 2018\u003c/strong>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>En el avión chárter de ICE para transportar a Luna y otros detenidos de regreso a Guatemala, ella recuerda que tuvo un ataque de pánico, temblaba tanto que apenas podía caminar sobre la pista cuando aterrizó en Ciudad de Guatemala.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Luna dijo también que fue a quedarse con su hermana, quien se había casado con un cristiano evangélico. Sin embargo, después de unos días, su hermana le dio algo de dinero y le pidió que se marchara.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“No tienes un hogar conmigo como una hermana”, recordó Luna que su hermana le dijo. “Solo como un hermano”.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Noviembre de 2018\u003c/strong>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Luna se fue de Guatemala y poco a poco regresó a la frontera entre Estados Unidos y México, con la esperanza de encontrar un camino de regreso a California. Conocimos a Luna mientras se hospedaba en Casa del Migrante, un refugio para migrantes en Tijuana.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"content": "“Soy una mujer transgénera, pero no toda mi vida voy a vivir vestido como un niño. Yo quiero que el día de mañana todas las personas que me conocen digan , ‘Luna. Triunfó. Luna luchó por sus sueños y los alcanzó”.",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Luna dijo que estaba tratando de seguir adelante como lavaplatos en un restaurante donde el dueño hacía comentarios homofóbicos. También luchaba por encontrar una clínica donde obtener su medicamento contra el VIH sin una identificación mexicana.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Las suelas de sus zapatos se estaban desgastando y vestía una camiseta de fútbol, su cabello era muy corto.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“Soy una mujer transgénera, pero no toda mi vida voy a vivir vestido como un niño. Yo quiero que el día de mañana todas las personas que me conocen digan , ‘Luna. Triunfo. Luna luchó por sus sueños y los alcanzó”.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_11846832\" class=\"wp-caption alignnone\" style=\"max-width: 800px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"wp-image-11846832 size-medium\" src=\"https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/10/2020/11/RS45762__MG_2087-qut-800x533.jpg\" alt='Luna Guzmán posa enfrente de un mural en Tijuana. Cuando era pequeña, ella se disfrazaba como una mariposa. Mientras estaba detenida, dijo que se sentía como \"una mariposa con las alas rotas\".' width=\"800\" height=\"533\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2020/11/RS45762__MG_2087-qut-800x533.jpg 800w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2020/11/RS45762__MG_2087-qut-1020x680.jpg 1020w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2020/11/RS45762__MG_2087-qut-160x107.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2020/11/RS45762__MG_2087-qut-1536x1024.jpg 1536w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2020/11/RS45762__MG_2087-qut.jpg 1920w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 800px) 100vw, 800px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Luna Guzmán posa enfrente de un mural en Tijuana. Cuando era pequeña, ella se disfrazaba como una mariposa. Mientras estaba detenida, dijo que se sentía como “una mariposa con las alas rotas”. \u003ccite>(Erin Siegal McIntyre)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Enero de 2019\u003c/strong>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Un mes después, Luna mandó un mensaje vía WhatsApp para decir que sabía que su sueño de venir a California probablemente terminó porque había renunciado a su solicitud de asilo el año anterior.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Pero luego, unas semanas más tarde, envió un vídeo suyo, de pie, en un lugar con mucho viento, y con el muro fronterizo detrás de ella.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“¡Mira!” exclamó Luna. “¡Crucé! Te veré en San Francisco, junto al puente Golden Gate para tomar un café”.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>WhatsApp se mantuvo en silencio durante semanas.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Febrero de 2019\u003c/strong>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Recibimos finalmente una llamada que debimos pagar del centro de detención de Otay Mesa. Luna dijo a través de la línea telefónica desafinada que estaba en la misma celda y en la misma cama en la que se había quedado el año pasado.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“Le quita las alas a una mariposa, así me siento yo ahora”, dijo Luna. “He sido una prisionera en mi propio cuerpo, ahora soy una prisionera aquí”.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>12 de marzo de 2019\u003c/strong>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Después de que Luna estuvo detenida durante unas seis semanas, ICE nos concedió permiso para entrevistarla en persona en Otay Mesa.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Seguimos a un guardia a una sala de espera con otras familias. Un letrero sobre el escritorio de metal gris de un guardia decía: “la esperanza es el ancla del alma. Sé agradecido”.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Cuando llamaron nuestros nombres, pasamos por una puerta pesada hasta donde Luna estaba sentada en una pequeña habitación. Vestía sandalias Crocs azules, calcetines marrones y un uniforme azul con la palabra “detenida” estampada en la espalda con letras blancas.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_11846827\" class=\"wp-caption alignnone\" style=\"max-width: 800px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"wp-image-11846827 size-medium\" src=\"https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/10/2020/11/RS45757__MG_0143-qut-800x533.jpg\" alt=\"Sasha Khokha de The California Report entrevistó a Luna Guzmán dentro del centro de detención de migrantes Otay Mesa en marzo de 2019.\" width=\"800\" height=\"533\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2020/11/RS45757__MG_0143-qut-800x533.jpg 800w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2020/11/RS45757__MG_0143-qut-1020x680.jpg 1020w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2020/11/RS45757__MG_0143-qut-160x107.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2020/11/RS45757__MG_0143-qut-1536x1024.jpg 1536w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2020/11/RS45757__MG_0143-qut.jpg 1920w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 800px) 100vw, 800px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Sasha Khokha de The California Report entrevistó a Luna Guzmán dentro del centro de detención de migrantes Otay Mesa en marzo de 2019. \u003ccite>(Erin Siegal McIntyre.)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>Se veía demacrada y exhausta, pero sus ojos aún brillaban. Su cabello era muy corto. Luna dijo que tuvo que cortárselo todo después de que un hombre le quitara un trozo de cabello con una navaja.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“Me dijo que no toleraba a los homosexuales y me cortó con la navaja”, dijo Luna. “De un rastrillo de una rasuradora me cortó mi cabello. Fue muy duro para mí porque me dijo que si yo me quejaba con los oficiales me iba a ir peor”.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Luna dijo además que eso sucedió en el Centro Correccional Metropolitano, una cárcel federal en San Diego, donde estuvo detenida durante aproximadamente una semana después de que los agentes de la patrulla fronteriza la recogieran. Fue acusada allí del delito federal de reingreso ilegal a Estados Unidos, luego de que el presidente Trump intensificara los enjuiciamientos bajo una política de “cero tolerancia”.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Pero el acoso sexual en el centro de detención de ICE fue aún peor, agregó Luna.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“Aquí hay personas que nos tocan el trasero, que nos tocan las bubis que nos miran cuando nos estamos bañando”, dijo Luna. “ Quieren que nos enseñen sus partes. Yo no quiero estar más tiempo acá. Yo sé que si yo me meto una queja, no me van a hacer caso. Yo se que no me van a hacer caso”.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Además, Luna dijo que no le alcanzaba el dinero para comprarse champú o bocadillos en la tienda del centro de detención. Agregó que otros presos se ofrecieron a comprárselos a cambio de favores sexuales.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“Yo no voy a hacer algo que no me guste por una sopa que vale 60 centavos de dólar”, dijo Luna. Yo no voy a estar haciendo cosas malas, tener sexo con nadie acá. Toda la discriminación que vivimos allá afuera, acá es peor porque acá es otro mundo. Acá es un mundo de la discriminación y la homofobia y el acoso es súper grandísimo. Es peor que allá afuera. Porque acá no tienes para dónde ir, acá está todo cerrado”.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Un estudio en 2018 encontró que los inmigrantes LGBTQ tienen casi 100 veces más probabilidades de ser acosados o agredidos sexualmente durante una detención de ICE.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“He sido prisionera en mi propio cuerpo, ahora soy una prisionera aquí”, dijo Luna.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Luna dijo que no quería llorar delante de nosotros. Quería ser la persona fuerte que nos había impresionado con su coraje y tenacidad cuando la conocimos en Tijuana cuatro meses atrás.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Pero después de nuestra entrevista nos asomamos por una ventana de la pequeña habitación. Tenía la cabeza sobre la mesa y sollozaba.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_11846828\" class=\"wp-caption alignnone\" style=\"max-width: 800px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"wp-image-11846828 size-medium\" src=\"https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/10/2020/11/RS45758__MG_0156-qut-800x533.jpg\" alt=\"Luna Guzmán llora cabizbaja después de su entrevista con las reporteras Sasha Khokha y Erin Siegal McIntyre.\" width=\"800\" height=\"533\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2020/11/RS45758__MG_0156-qut-800x533.jpg 800w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2020/11/RS45758__MG_0156-qut-1020x680.jpg 1020w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2020/11/RS45758__MG_0156-qut-160x107.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2020/11/RS45758__MG_0156-qut-1536x1024.jpg 1536w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2020/11/RS45758__MG_0156-qut.jpg 1920w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 800px) 100vw, 800px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Luna Guzmán llora cabizbaja después de su entrevista con las reporteras Sasha Khokha y Erin Siegal McIntyre. \u003ccite>(Erin Siegal McIntyre. )\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>El segundo período de detención de Luna solo duró un par de meses. ICE trató de deportarla lo antes posible: había reingresado a Estados Unidos escalando la valla fronteriza y violó la prohibición de cinco años de reingreso que se le impuso cuando fue deportada por primera vez. Ahora se le prohibió regresar al país en 20 años.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Esta era la segunda vez que estaba detenida y todavía no tenía abogado. Nadie que le ofrezca una alternativa al asilo, algo llamado “Retención de la Expulsión”, que ha permitido que algunas mujeres trans de Centroamérica se queden en Estados Unidos.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“Si ella se hubiera asociado con un buen abogado de asilo, ahora mismo estaríamos teniendo una conversación realmente diferente sobre ella”, dijo Love. “Podríamos estar hablando de ella ahora en 2020, inscribiéndose en una universidad comunitaria o, ya sabes, consiguiendo su primer apartamento o, de hecho, obteniendo su residencia legal permanente en Estados Unidos y una green card o permiso de residencia. Pero en cambio, no se le proporcionó el proceso que se merecía”.\u003c/p>\n\u003ch3>“No es seguro que te quedes en Guatemala”\u003c/h3>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Marzo 27 de 2019\u003c/strong>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Luna fue deportada por segunda vez a la Ciudad de Guatemala. KQED contrató a un equipo de filmación para encontrarse con ella cuando bajara del avión.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Contó cuatro dólares estadounidense de una bolsa de plástico marcada como “propiedad personal”, dinero ganado trabajando en la lavandería del centro de detención. Se pasó la mano por la cara, como queriendo que todo desapareciera.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Luego se dirigió a la Asociación Lambda, una organización LGBTQ en la Ciudad de Guatemala que ayuda a los deportados, que después de escuchar su historia, un empleado de admisión le dijo a Luna que no era seguro quedarse en Guatemala.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“Su perfil es de alto riesgo”, dijo.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>No necesitaba recordarle sobre las mujeres trans que fueron asesinadas recientemente después de haber sido deportadas a Centroamérica. El empleado de admisión dijo también que le preocupaba que los proxenetas en su ciudad natal pudieran tener conexiones en la Ciudad de Guatemala y rastrearla.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Consiguió una casa segura en un lugar secreto, pero Luna decidió irse después de pasar una noche allí. Se negó a sentirse encerrada de nuevo.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>A estas alturas llevábamos cinco meses informando sobre la historia de Luna. Algunos oyentes transgéneros de California Report en Modesto que escucharon una de las historias, la contactaron y le enviaron 80 dólares, dinero que la ayudó a salir de Guatemala nuevamente y emprender otro viaje de regreso a la frontera. También organizaron un \u003cem>drag show\u003c/em> dedicado a Luna.\u003c/p>\u003c/p>\u003cp>\u003cspan class='utils-parseShortcode-shortcodes-__youtubeShortcode__embedYoutube'>\n \u003cspan class='utils-parseShortcode-shortcodes-__youtubeShortcode__embedYoutubeInside'>\n \u003ciframe\n loading='lazy'\n class='utils-parseShortcode-shortcodes-__youtubeShortcode__youtubePlayer'\n type='text/html'\n src='//www.youtube.com/embed/XkR9vHtM9T8'\n title='//www.youtube.com/embed/XkR9vHtM9T8'\n allowfullscreen='true'\n style='border:0;'>\u003c/iframe>\n \u003c/span>\n \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\u003cp>\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Abril y julio de 2019\u003c/strong>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Después de unos meses más, Luna encontró la manera de salir de Guatemala y regresar a México. Solicitó una visa humanitaria para quedarse temporalmente y encontró trabajo haciendo tortillas en un restaurante de Tapachula. Conoció a algunos nuevos amigos, otros migrantes transgéneros.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Pronto, llena de valor por sus nuevos amigos, decidió vestirse de mujer nuevamente para cenar con ellos en un café local.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>La mañana siguiente, a las 6 a.m. llamó llorando. Dijo que había sido violada por cinco hombres armados, que la secuestraron mientras esperaba un taxi después de cenar. Dijo que la golpearon y la patearon en los riñones, donde se estaba recuperando de una reciente infección.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“¿Por qué tengo que sufrir tanto? ¿Por qué la vida es injusta conmigo?”, sollozó Luna. “¿Por qué cuando demuestro la persona que soy, siempre me va mal, eso es lo que no entiendo”.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Luna dijo que tenía demasiado miedo de presentar una demanda ante la policía mexicana, porque probablemente no harían más que reírse de ella y decir cosas homofóbicas. Me envió una publicación en Facebook sobre la muerte de un activista gay, Juan Ruiz Nicolás, quien fue asesinado en Tapachula, el pueblo donde se hospedaba cerca de la frontera con Guatemala.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"content": "‘Si ella se hubiera asociado con un buen abogado de asilo, ahora mismo estaríamos teniendo una conversación realmente diferente sobre ella. Podríamos estar hablando de ella ahora en 2020, inscribirse en un colegio comunitario o, ya sabes, conseguir su primer apartamento o, de hecho, conseguir su residencia legal permanente en Estados Unidos’.",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Como no reportó la violación a nadie, es difícil confirmar que Luna fue agredida. Esto es parte de la paradoja de los solicitantes de asilo. Se espera que documenten y prueben las cosas horribles que les han sucedido, pero con demasiada frecuencia, el acto de demandar estos abusos podría ponerlos en mayor peligro.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Por supuesto, como periodistas, hemos hecho todo lo posible para examinar su historia. KQED incluso demandó al Departamento de Seguridad Nacional para obtener los registros de Luna. Pero cuando se trata de lo que sucedió a Luna en Guatemala o México, no hay forma de probar el tráfico y la violencia. Llevaba tanto tiempo en tránsito, viviendo en la calle y en refugios, que tiene poca documentación de su vida. Aún así, la historia de Luna es consistente con lo que han encontrado los defensores y las investigaciones sobre el trato de los detenidos inmigrantes transgéneros y portadores de VIH. Mucho de esto también se refleja en su solicitud de asilo y en sus registros médicos.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Luna finalmente recibió una visa humanitaria temporal y una tarjeta de identificación mexicana, válida por un año. El gobierno mexicano la envió de regreso a Tijuana, a una casa segura para refugiados LGBTQ llamada Casa Arcoíris.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_11846833\" class=\"wp-caption alignnone\" style=\"max-width: 800px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"wp-image-11846833 size-medium\" src=\"https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/10/2020/11/RS45763__MG_2127-qut-800x533.jpg\" alt=\"Luna Guzmán camina por las calles de Tijuana con sus amistades de Casa Arcoíris, un albergue para refugiados LGBTQ provenientes de todo el mundo que esperan en México para recibir asilo en los Estados Unidos.\" width=\"800\" height=\"533\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2020/11/RS45763__MG_2127-qut-800x533.jpg 800w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2020/11/RS45763__MG_2127-qut-1020x680.jpg 1020w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2020/11/RS45763__MG_2127-qut-160x107.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2020/11/RS45763__MG_2127-qut-1536x1024.jpg 1536w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2020/11/RS45763__MG_2127-qut.jpg 1920w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 800px) 100vw, 800px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Luna Guzmán camina por las calles de Tijuana con sus amistades de Casa Arcoíris, un albergue para refugiados LGBTQ provenientes de todo el mundo que esperan en México para recibir asilo en los Estados Unidos. \u003ccite>(Erin Siegal McIntyre)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Octubre de 2019\u003c/strong>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>En octubre decidimos volver a visitarla en Tijuana para saber cómo estaba. Pero no pudimos encontrarnos con ella en la casa donde se quedaba porque querían mantener la ubicación en secreto.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Nos encontramos con Luna y uno de sus nuevos compañeros refugiados en un enorme supermercado donde compraban frijoles secos, zanahorias y repollo. Cada uno de ellos se turnaron para cocinar un platillo de su país de origen para los otros habitantes.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Une amige no binario de Honduras, que no quiso dar su nombre por seguridad, dijo que Luna es bien querida en la casa.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“Se ha encariñado con todo el mundo. Todo el mundo la aprecia mucho”, dijo une compañere refugiados de Luna. \u003cspan style=\"color: #ff0000\"> \u003c/span>“Ha compartido su historia. La comunidad LGBT nos hace una conexión como familia”.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Esa comunidad, esa estabilidad, cambiaron las cosas para Luna. Llevaba vestido y lápiz labial con más frecuencia, se reía más con sus nuevos amigos.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_11846825\" class=\"wp-caption alignnone\" style=\"max-width: 800px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"wp-image-11846825 size-medium\" src=\"https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/10/2020/11/Luna_diptych-800x632.jpg\" alt=\"En Tijuana, Luna Guzmán ha logrado expresar y explorar su identidad de género con más libertad.\" width=\"800\" height=\"632\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2020/11/Luna_diptych-800x632.jpg 800w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2020/11/Luna_diptych-1020x805.jpg 1020w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2020/11/Luna_diptych-160x126.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2020/11/Luna_diptych.jpg 1368w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 800px) 100vw, 800px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">En Tijuana, Luna Guzmán ha logrado expresar y explorar su identidad de género con más libertad. \u003ccite>(Courtesy of Luna Guzmán)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>Pero su semblante cambió cuando nos llevó a ver la sección de la valla fronteriza por donde cruzó la última vez que vino a California. Señaló ardillas y libélulas que volaban entre los listones de la cerca, entre países, sin siquiera saberlo.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“Es algo que los humanos se nos limita a veces, verdad, que no tenemos esa libertad”, dijo Luna.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Le preguntamos qué pensaba mientras miraba a través de los barrotes de la cerca hacia California.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“Es un muro que mata sueños, que quita todo”, dijo Luna “Yo dije de este muro para acá, voy a dejar todo mi pasado. No a voltear ni a ver. Aquí es el nuevo inicio, aquí volví a nacer. Eso es California, y no se va a ir. Algún día yo voy a ir ahí. No sé si hasta cuando sea el 2050 o 2100 pero voy a ir ahí algún día”.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_11846830\" class=\"wp-caption alignnone\" style=\"max-width: 800px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"wp-image-11846830 size-medium\" src=\"https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/10/2020/11/RS45760__MG_1096-qut-800x533.jpg\" alt=\"Luna Guzmán mira a través de la valla fronteriza en Tijuana, desde el mismo sitio en donde cruzó la frontera en enero de 2019 cuando intentaba entrar a California por segunda vez. Había sido deportada anteriormente luego de que abandonó su solicitud de asilo ya que no podía aguantar más meses largos de sufrir acosos y abusos en el centro de detención.\" width=\"800\" height=\"533\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2020/11/RS45760__MG_1096-qut-800x533.jpg 800w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2020/11/RS45760__MG_1096-qut-1020x680.jpg 1020w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2020/11/RS45760__MG_1096-qut-160x107.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2020/11/RS45760__MG_1096-qut-1536x1024.jpg 1536w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2020/11/RS45760__MG_1096-qut.jpg 1920w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 800px) 100vw, 800px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Luna Guzmán mira a través de la valla fronteriza en Tijuana, desde el mismo sitio en donde cruzó la frontera en enero de 2019 cuando intentaba entrar a California por segunda vez. Había sido deportada anteriormente luego de que abandonó su solicitud de asilo ya que no podía aguantar más meses largos de sufrir acosos y abusos en el centro de detención. \u003ccite>(Erin Siegal McIntyre)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003ch3>“Gracias por contar mi historia”\u003c/h3>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Marzo de 2020\u003c/strong>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Cuando el brote de COVID-19 llegó a México, Luna nos dejó un mensaje de voz. Planeaba quedarse en un albergue con una amiga en las afueras de Ensenada.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Hablamos sobre su alivio por estar lejos del centro de detención de Otay Mesa que resultó tener uno de los mayores brotes de COVID-19. Irónicamente, ser deportada pudo haberle salvado la vida.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Por otro lado, si todavía estuviera detenida, podría haber sido entregada a un patrocinador en EE.UU., como lo han estado algunos otros detenidos transgénera, para evitar el riesgo de contraer coronavirus.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Pero un mes después, en abril, Luna dejó una mensaje de voz. Su respiración era tan pesada y astrosa que era difícil de entender. Dijo que estaba en una unidad de cuidados intensivos del hospital público de Tijuana, enferma de COVID-19. Estaban a punto de ponerle un respirador.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“Gracias por todo”, dijo Luna con voz ronca. “Por querer contar mi historia. Ojalá la gente recuerde un poco de mí”.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Luego, como ha sucedido tantas veces en los últimos dos años, la conversación con Luna en WhatsApp se quedó en silencio durante semanas.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Finalmente, luego de varias semanas en el hospital, Luna dejó otro mensaje desde su cama de hospital. La habían desconectado del ventilador.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“Ay, Dios, yo pensé que iba a morir”, suspiró. “Pero no, aquí la pinche Luna está todavía aquí. Aquí está todavía resistiendo todo esto. Tengo mucho que vivir, mucho que expresar todavía. Soy una mujer fuerte. He sobrevivido todo, puedo sobrevivir esto.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003cbr>\n\u003cstrong>Noviembre de 2020\u003c/strong>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Luna nos dejó un mensaje de voz diciendo que el gobierno mexicano acaba de extender su visa humanitaria por un año más. Para ella era complicado trabajar y pagar alquiler en Tijuana. Tiene síntomas persistentes de coronavirus que incluyen fatiga, dificultad para respirar y dolor en las cuerdas vocales. Su sistema inmunológico también estaba luchando para combatir el VIH. Le preocupa que su cuerpo no sea lo suficientemente fuerte para combatir otro virus, por lo que se queda en casa lo más posible para evitar volver a infectarse con COVID-19.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Luna dijo también que ella y otros migrantes están celebrando la victoria de Joe Biden y esperan que él cumpla su promesa de campaña de “poner fin a las políticas de asilo perjudiciales del presidente Trump”, que incluían dificultar la búsqueda de protección para los migrantes LGBTQ.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Luna dijo que está lista para solicitar asilo en Estados Unidos nuevamente si las cosas cambian bajo el nuevo gobierno.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“Aquí estamos echándole ganas a la vida. Somos guerrilleras y hemos pasado por momentos difíciles. Tenemos esperanzas siempre, siempre sonriendole a la vida”, dijo Luna.\u003c/p>\n\u003chr>\n\u003cp>\u003cem>Este reporte fue traducido por el periodista Kervy Robles y editado por la periodista \u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/author/amorga\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Adriana Morga\u003c/a>. \u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/author/ccabreralomeli\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Carlos Cabrera-Lomelí\u003c/a> y \u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/author/lblanco\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Lina Blanco\u003c/a> también contribuyeron a esta versión en español. \u003c/em>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cem>Este proyecto contó con el apoyo de una subvención de la fundación \u003ca href=\"https://www.iwmf.org/\">International Women’s Media\u003c/a>. Su programa de Subvenciones para reportar las historias de las mujeres recibe fondos de la organización Secular Society. \u003ca href=\"https://www.imdb.com/name/nm10656367/\">Zoey Luna\u003c/a>, actriz transgénero vanguardista, dio su voz para el doblaje de Luna Guzmán en el audio \u003c/em>\u003cem>documental.\u003c/em>\u003cbr>\n\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"disqusTitle": "Migrants Sent Back by US Dumped in Monterrey, Mexico",
"title": "Migrants Sent Back by US Dumped in Monterrey, Mexico",
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"content": "\u003cp>The bus carrying dozens of Central Americans from the Texas border arrived in the northern Mexican city of Monterrey late at night and pulled up next to the station. Men and women disembarked with children in their arms or staggering sleepily by their sides, looked around fearfully and wondered what to do.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>They had thought they were being taken to a shelter where they could live, look for work and go to school. Instead they found themselves in a bustling metropolis of over 4 million people, dropped off on a street across from sleazy nightclubs and cabarets with signs advertising \"dancers.\"\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The Associated Press witnessed several such busloads in recent days carrying at least 450 Hondurans, Guatemalans and Salvadorans from Nuevo Laredo, bordering Laredo, Texas, to Monterrey, where they have been left to fend for themselves with no support in finding housing, work or schooling for children, who appear to make up about half the group.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[aside postID='news_11762786' label='immigration']Mexico has received some 20,000 asylum seekers returned to await U.S. immigration court dates under the program colloquially known as “remain in Mexico.” But there had been no sign of such large-scale moving of people away from the border before now.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>In response to a request for comment, Mexico's National Immigration Institute, or INM for its initials in Spanish, said in a two-paragraph statement that the agency cooperates with consular authorities and all levels of government to attend to returnees. It said Mexico abides by international law and is working to upgrade shelters and immigration facilities “to improve the conditions in which migrants await their processes in national territory.” The INM did not address specific questions about the AP’s findings.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Maximiliano Reyes, deputy foreign relations secretary, acknowledged last week that migrants were being removed from Nuevo Laredo and said it was for their own safety. He did not explain why they were dropped off in Monterrey or provide any further details.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Nuevo Laredo is located in the state of Tamaulipas, a region plagued by violence and drug cartels, so much so that the U.S. State Department warns against all travel there due to kidnappings and other crime.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“It’s clearly important to move people out of very dangerous Mexican border towns,” said Maureen Meyer, an immigration expert at the Washington Office on Latin America, which advocates for human rights in the region. “But simply busing them somewhere else without any guidance on what’s awaiting them and without having the services available to house asylum-seekers and support them, the Mexican government’s really exposing them to further risk.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>This account is based on in-person interviews with more than 20 migrants who made the two-hour, 130-mile journey south to Monterrey in the week since the new practice began.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[pullquote size='medium' align='right' citation='Jazmin Desir']'They have abandoned us here to get rid of us.'[/pullquote]\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Unlike asylum-seekers who wait in line for months to file claims in the U.S. and are then sent back, all those taken to Monterrey who spoke with the AP said they had crossed illegally and spent several days in U.S. detention centers before being returned with a court date. Some said they had not asked for asylum but rather to be returned to their home countries, but were told that going to Mexico or continued detention were the only options.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“I don’t know why they gave me this [court date] paper when I didn’t ask for it,” said Antonio Herrera, a Honduran policeman, explaining that he had asked U.S. immigration officials to deport him because his 7-year-old daughter was ill.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Javier Ochoa, who was with his 16-year-old son, did try to request asylum because the boy would be in danger back home for his participation in anti-government protests. He said he was not allowed to make his case.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“They didn’t interview us,” Ochoa said. “Just sign, like it or not.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The migrants AP spoke to said that U.S. authorities had told them Mexico would offer them work, schooling and health care while they waited. The U.S. Department of Homeland Security did not respond to requests for comment.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[aside tag='immigrant-detention' label='More Immigration Coverage']President Andrés Manuel López Obrador has promised to provide those things, but the reality in Nuevo Laredo turned out to be different.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The returnees were met at the crossing by Mexican immigration officials who handed them documents presumably allowing them to work and move about the country. Without further explanation they were then loaded at an immigration station parking lot onto buses with the logos of private companies with charter contracts with the INM.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The migrants were not forced to make the journey but said they didn’t see any other option. They know the dangers in Tamaulipas, where organized crime groups have been known to extort, kidnap and kill vulnerable migrants. In 2010, 72 migrants were massacred in the town of San Fernando.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>In Monterrey they found a big, unfamiliar city where, unbeknownst to them, shelters were already overflowing, and it quickly became clear they’d have to make do as best they could.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Some asked the bus driver for advice on where to go. Others asked locals to borrow cellphones to beseech relatives for money or call their “coyotes,” or smugglers, to try to cross illegally again into the U.S.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“They have abandoned us here to get rid of us,” said Jazmin Desir, sitting on the floor of the bus terminal surrounded by her four sleeping children. The hair stylist and her husband, a mechanic, were waiting for relatives to send money for them to get back to Honduras, which they figured would take two years to pay off.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Within a half-hour only a handful remained at the terminal. The rest had melted away into the city.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Two days later, with money wired from relatives, a group hired a bus to take them to the southern city of Tapachula, near Guatemala. From there they would make their way home — essentially self-deporting at their own expense, about $100 each for the 1,000-mile (1,700-kilometer) journey.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“After suffering so much, this is what we long for,” said Neftalí Anael Cantillana, a Honduran teacher traveling with her 16-year-old son.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>At least one other group arranged a similar trip according to Jorge Pérez, the driver who took them.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>López Obrador’s government did not mention the busings on Monday when it presented a report halfway into a 90-day period during which it has agreed to reduce irregular transmigration as part of a deal to head off threatened U.S. tariffs.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[pullquote size='medium' align='right' citation='Aarón Méndez, Amar shelter director']'What the United States wants is to get rid of the Central Americans in a legal way, and it does so by handing them those [hearing] documents.'[/pullquote]The flow has fallen by 36% in the last 45 days, according to U.S. Border Patrol detention figures. U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo praised Mexico during a visit Sunday. Foreign Relations Secretary Marcelo Ebrard said Mexico is fulfilling its commitment to human rights.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>But critics assert that the country has become a de facto dumping ground for people the Trump administration is eager to remove from U.S. soil.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“What the United States wants is to get rid of the Central Americans in a legal way, and it does so by handing them those documents,” said Aarón Méndez, director of the Amar shelter in Nuevo Laredo.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Officials in the communities involved say they’re overwhelmed and in the dark.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>José Martín Carmona, head of Tamaulipas’ governmental Institute for Migrants, acknowledged that the state had refused to receive more migrants, saying it lacks resources.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>But he said he was unaware of the buses to Monterrey, even though they depart less than a mile from his offices: “Right now we have zero communication with the INM,” Carmona said.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Those arriving in Monterrey feel like they’ve been lied to and abandoned by everyone — except, some said, by their coyotes who held up their end of the bargain.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The Mexican government says it's studying setting up makeshift shelters at warehouses and other properties to handle returnees to Nuevo Laredo. Meanwhile the “remain in Mexico” approach has gone into effect for another Tamaulipas border city: Matamoros, across from Brownsville, Texas.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Meyer said the busing policy also raises concerns about how asylum-seekers will be able to access U.S. lawyers to assist with their claims, and who is going to make sure they can get back to Nuevo Laredo for their U.S. appointments in September and October.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Julio Hernández, who was beaten and threatened in Guatemala for refusing extortion demands by gang members, is one who’s getting by. Left in Monterrey last week, he found work at a food stand and is not giving up on U.S. asylum.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>But on Wednesday he said he was thinking of sending his wife and two kids home:\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“It’s very dangerous here, too, and I don’t want to put them at risk,” he said. “I’ll stay here, and keep fighting.”\u003cbr>\n[ad fullwidth]\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[ad floatright]\u003c/p>\n",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003cp>The bus carrying dozens of Central Americans from the Texas border arrived in the northern Mexican city of Monterrey late at night and pulled up next to the station. Men and women disembarked with children in their arms or staggering sleepily by their sides, looked around fearfully and wondered what to do.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>They had thought they were being taken to a shelter where they could live, look for work and go to school. Instead they found themselves in a bustling metropolis of over 4 million people, dropped off on a street across from sleazy nightclubs and cabarets with signs advertising \"dancers.\"\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The Associated Press witnessed several such busloads in recent days carrying at least 450 Hondurans, Guatemalans and Salvadorans from Nuevo Laredo, bordering Laredo, Texas, to Monterrey, where they have been left to fend for themselves with no support in finding housing, work or schooling for children, who appear to make up about half the group.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>Mexico has received some 20,000 asylum seekers returned to await U.S. immigration court dates under the program colloquially known as “remain in Mexico.” But there had been no sign of such large-scale moving of people away from the border before now.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>In response to a request for comment, Mexico's National Immigration Institute, or INM for its initials in Spanish, said in a two-paragraph statement that the agency cooperates with consular authorities and all levels of government to attend to returnees. It said Mexico abides by international law and is working to upgrade shelters and immigration facilities “to improve the conditions in which migrants await their processes in national territory.” The INM did not address specific questions about the AP’s findings.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Maximiliano Reyes, deputy foreign relations secretary, acknowledged last week that migrants were being removed from Nuevo Laredo and said it was for their own safety. He did not explain why they were dropped off in Monterrey or provide any further details.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Nuevo Laredo is located in the state of Tamaulipas, a region plagued by violence and drug cartels, so much so that the U.S. State Department warns against all travel there due to kidnappings and other crime.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“It’s clearly important to move people out of very dangerous Mexican border towns,” said Maureen Meyer, an immigration expert at the Washington Office on Latin America, which advocates for human rights in the region. “But simply busing them somewhere else without any guidance on what’s awaiting them and without having the services available to house asylum-seekers and support them, the Mexican government’s really exposing them to further risk.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>This account is based on in-person interviews with more than 20 migrants who made the two-hour, 130-mile journey south to Monterrey in the week since the new practice began.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Unlike asylum-seekers who wait in line for months to file claims in the U.S. and are then sent back, all those taken to Monterrey who spoke with the AP said they had crossed illegally and spent several days in U.S. detention centers before being returned with a court date. Some said they had not asked for asylum but rather to be returned to their home countries, but were told that going to Mexico or continued detention were the only options.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“I don’t know why they gave me this [court date] paper when I didn’t ask for it,” said Antonio Herrera, a Honduran policeman, explaining that he had asked U.S. immigration officials to deport him because his 7-year-old daughter was ill.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Javier Ochoa, who was with his 16-year-old son, did try to request asylum because the boy would be in danger back home for his participation in anti-government protests. He said he was not allowed to make his case.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“They didn’t interview us,” Ochoa said. “Just sign, like it or not.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The migrants AP spoke to said that U.S. authorities had told them Mexico would offer them work, schooling and health care while they waited. The U.S. Department of Homeland Security did not respond to requests for comment.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>President Andrés Manuel López Obrador has promised to provide those things, but the reality in Nuevo Laredo turned out to be different.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The returnees were met at the crossing by Mexican immigration officials who handed them documents presumably allowing them to work and move about the country. Without further explanation they were then loaded at an immigration station parking lot onto buses with the logos of private companies with charter contracts with the INM.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The migrants were not forced to make the journey but said they didn’t see any other option. They know the dangers in Tamaulipas, where organized crime groups have been known to extort, kidnap and kill vulnerable migrants. In 2010, 72 migrants were massacred in the town of San Fernando.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>In Monterrey they found a big, unfamiliar city where, unbeknownst to them, shelters were already overflowing, and it quickly became clear they’d have to make do as best they could.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Some asked the bus driver for advice on where to go. Others asked locals to borrow cellphones to beseech relatives for money or call their “coyotes,” or smugglers, to try to cross illegally again into the U.S.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“They have abandoned us here to get rid of us,” said Jazmin Desir, sitting on the floor of the bus terminal surrounded by her four sleeping children. The hair stylist and her husband, a mechanic, were waiting for relatives to send money for them to get back to Honduras, which they figured would take two years to pay off.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Within a half-hour only a handful remained at the terminal. The rest had melted away into the city.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Two days later, with money wired from relatives, a group hired a bus to take them to the southern city of Tapachula, near Guatemala. From there they would make their way home — essentially self-deporting at their own expense, about $100 each for the 1,000-mile (1,700-kilometer) journey.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“After suffering so much, this is what we long for,” said Neftalí Anael Cantillana, a Honduran teacher traveling with her 16-year-old son.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>At least one other group arranged a similar trip according to Jorge Pérez, the driver who took them.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>López Obrador’s government did not mention the busings on Monday when it presented a report halfway into a 90-day period during which it has agreed to reduce irregular transmigration as part of a deal to head off threatened U.S. tariffs.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>The flow has fallen by 36% in the last 45 days, according to U.S. Border Patrol detention figures. U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo praised Mexico during a visit Sunday. Foreign Relations Secretary Marcelo Ebrard said Mexico is fulfilling its commitment to human rights.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>But critics assert that the country has become a de facto dumping ground for people the Trump administration is eager to remove from U.S. soil.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“What the United States wants is to get rid of the Central Americans in a legal way, and it does so by handing them those documents,” said Aarón Méndez, director of the Amar shelter in Nuevo Laredo.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Officials in the communities involved say they’re overwhelmed and in the dark.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>José Martín Carmona, head of Tamaulipas’ governmental Institute for Migrants, acknowledged that the state had refused to receive more migrants, saying it lacks resources.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>But he said he was unaware of the buses to Monterrey, even though they depart less than a mile from his offices: “Right now we have zero communication with the INM,” Carmona said.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Those arriving in Monterrey feel like they’ve been lied to and abandoned by everyone — except, some said, by their coyotes who held up their end of the bargain.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The Mexican government says it's studying setting up makeshift shelters at warehouses and other properties to handle returnees to Nuevo Laredo. Meanwhile the “remain in Mexico” approach has gone into effect for another Tamaulipas border city: Matamoros, across from Brownsville, Texas.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Meyer said the busing policy also raises concerns about how asylum-seekers will be able to access U.S. lawyers to assist with their claims, and who is going to make sure they can get back to Nuevo Laredo for their U.S. appointments in September and October.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Julio Hernández, who was beaten and threatened in Guatemala for refusing extortion demands by gang members, is one who’s getting by. Left in Monterrey last week, he found work at a food stand and is not giving up on U.S. asylum.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>But on Wednesday he said he was thinking of sending his wife and two kids home:\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“It’s very dangerous here, too, and I don’t want to put them at risk,” he said. “I’ll stay here, and keep fighting.”\u003cbr>\n\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"disqusTitle": "Federal Judge in S.F. Halts New Rule Targeting Central American Asylum-Seekers",
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"content": "\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Update, 5:57 p.m. Monday: \u003c/strong>U.S. Attorneys representing the Trump administration filed an appeal of the judge's ruling this afternoon in the Ninth U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Original Post:\u003c/strong> A federal judge in San Francisco on Wednesday temporarily blocked a Trump administration rule that bars most Central American asylum-seekers from seeking protection in the U.S.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[pullquote size='small' align='right' citation='ACLU attorney Lee Gelernt']'If this rule were upheld it would essentially be the end of asylum at the southern border.'[/pullquote]U.S. District Judge Jon Tigar issued a nationwide preliminary injunction halting the rule that would require most migrants to request asylum in another country first. Tigar’s decision came after four California-based immigrant advocate groups sued on the same day the rule went into effect last week.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>In his decision, Tigar wrote that the so-called “Third Country” rule is inconsistent with existing U.S. asylum laws.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“While the public has a weighty interest in the efficient administration of the immigration laws at the border, it also has a substantial interest in ensuring that the statutes enacted by its representatives are not imperiled by executive fiat,” wrote Tigar.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[ad fullwidth]\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Under the new policy, migrants become ineligible for asylum in the United States if they traveled through another country on their way to the U.S. but did not seek protections there first.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The Trump administration argued it needs the policy to curb the number of people making what it called meritless asylum claims, overwhelming border facilities and clogging immigration courts.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[aside tag='asylum-seekers' label='Related Coverage']For migrants from Central America, Mexico would be a likely “third country” in which to seek safety from persecution. But Judge Tigar said the U.S. government failed to show that Mexico offers a full and fair procedure for deciding asylum claims.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“Rather, it affirmatively demonstrates that asylum claimants removed to Mexico are likely to be (1) exposed to violence and abuse from third parties and government officials; (2) denied their rights under Mexican and international law, and (3) wrongly returned to countries from which they fled persecution,” he wrote.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>During the hearing, Tigar said he expected the losing party to appeal his decision.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The Trump administration argues it needs this new rule — and other recent immigration restrictions — to address what it calls a security and humanitarian crisis due to a surge in Central American migrants crossing the border.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Tigar's injunction was \"against a lawful and necessary rule that discourages abuse of our asylum system,\" said the White House in a statement.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The Attorney General and the Secretary of Homeland Security have “broad discretionary authority” to implement the policy, according to Justice Department attorneys.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>During a hearing in federal court in San Francisco on Wednesday, Tigar pressed Justice Department lawyer Scott Stewart on whether it’s lawful for the government to require people to apply for protection in countries such as Guatemala, which lack an asylum process as robust as the U.S.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[pullquote]The Trump administration argues it needs this new rule — and other recent immigration restrictions — to address what it calls a security and humanitarian crisis due to a surge in Central American migrants crossing the border.[/pullquote]He said that while the government included information about the asylum process in Mexico in its court briefings, he couldn’t find a “scintilla of evidence” about the adequacy of the asylum system in Guatemala, which Salvadoran and Honduran migrants cross before reaching the U.S. border.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Attorneys with the American Civil Liberties Union, which represents the groups suing, argued that the policy is “arbitrary and capricious,” and violates U.S. immigration law because protections “cannot be categorically denied based on an asylum-seeker's route to the United States.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“If this rule were upheld it would essentially be the end of asylum at the southern border,” said ACLU attorney Lee Gelernt, who argued the case before Judge Tigar.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The decision came hours after U.S. District Judge Timothy Kelly, in Washington D.C., said he was allowing the “Third Country” asylum policy to stand on a separate legal challenge.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The White House applauded that decision in a statement as “a victory for Americans concerned about the crisis at our southern border. The court properly rejected the attempt of a few special interest groups to block a rule that discourages abuse of our asylum system.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Between 2017 and 2018, asylum applications increased by nearly 70%, according to government figures. The majority of migrants apprehended at the U.S.-Mexico border are Central American families and children, and many say they are fleeing gang violence and poverty in their home countries, as well as government inaction to address these issues.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>During the first eight months of this fiscal year, border authorities arrested nearly 525,000 non-Mexican migrants — nearly twice the number in the prior two years combined, according to government court filings.\u003c/p>\n\n",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Update, 5:57 p.m. Monday: \u003c/strong>U.S. Attorneys representing the Trump administration filed an appeal of the judge's ruling this afternoon in the Ninth U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Original Post:\u003c/strong> A federal judge in San Francisco on Wednesday temporarily blocked a Trump administration rule that bars most Central American asylum-seekers from seeking protection in the U.S.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"content": "'If this rule were upheld it would essentially be the end of asylum at the southern border.'",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>U.S. District Judge Jon Tigar issued a nationwide preliminary injunction halting the rule that would require most migrants to request asylum in another country first. Tigar’s decision came after four California-based immigrant advocate groups sued on the same day the rule went into effect last week.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>In his decision, Tigar wrote that the so-called “Third Country” rule is inconsistent with existing U.S. asylum laws.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“While the public has a weighty interest in the efficient administration of the immigration laws at the border, it also has a substantial interest in ensuring that the statutes enacted by its representatives are not imperiled by executive fiat,” wrote Tigar.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Under the new policy, migrants become ineligible for asylum in the United States if they traveled through another country on their way to the U.S. but did not seek protections there first.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The Trump administration argued it needs the policy to curb the number of people making what it called meritless asylum claims, overwhelming border facilities and clogging immigration courts.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>For migrants from Central America, Mexico would be a likely “third country” in which to seek safety from persecution. But Judge Tigar said the U.S. government failed to show that Mexico offers a full and fair procedure for deciding asylum claims.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“Rather, it affirmatively demonstrates that asylum claimants removed to Mexico are likely to be (1) exposed to violence and abuse from third parties and government officials; (2) denied their rights under Mexican and international law, and (3) wrongly returned to countries from which they fled persecution,” he wrote.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>During the hearing, Tigar said he expected the losing party to appeal his decision.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The Trump administration argues it needs this new rule — and other recent immigration restrictions — to address what it calls a security and humanitarian crisis due to a surge in Central American migrants crossing the border.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Tigar's injunction was \"against a lawful and necessary rule that discourages abuse of our asylum system,\" said the White House in a statement.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The Attorney General and the Secretary of Homeland Security have “broad discretionary authority” to implement the policy, according to Justice Department attorneys.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>During a hearing in federal court in San Francisco on Wednesday, Tigar pressed Justice Department lawyer Scott Stewart on whether it’s lawful for the government to require people to apply for protection in countries such as Guatemala, which lack an asylum process as robust as the U.S.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"content": "The Trump administration argues it needs this new rule — and other recent immigration restrictions — to address what it calls a security and humanitarian crisis due to a surge in Central American migrants crossing the border.",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>He said that while the government included information about the asylum process in Mexico in its court briefings, he couldn’t find a “scintilla of evidence” about the adequacy of the asylum system in Guatemala, which Salvadoran and Honduran migrants cross before reaching the U.S. border.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Attorneys with the American Civil Liberties Union, which represents the groups suing, argued that the policy is “arbitrary and capricious,” and violates U.S. immigration law because protections “cannot be categorically denied based on an asylum-seeker's route to the United States.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“If this rule were upheld it would essentially be the end of asylum at the southern border,” said ACLU attorney Lee Gelernt, who argued the case before Judge Tigar.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The decision came hours after U.S. District Judge Timothy Kelly, in Washington D.C., said he was allowing the “Third Country” asylum policy to stand on a separate legal challenge.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The White House applauded that decision in a statement as “a victory for Americans concerned about the crisis at our southern border. The court properly rejected the attempt of a few special interest groups to block a rule that discourages abuse of our asylum system.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Between 2017 and 2018, asylum applications increased by nearly 70%, according to government figures. The majority of migrants apprehended at the U.S.-Mexico border are Central American families and children, and many say they are fleeing gang violence and poverty in their home countries, as well as government inaction to address these issues.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>During the first eight months of this fiscal year, border authorities arrested nearly 525,000 non-Mexican migrants — nearly twice the number in the prior two years combined, according to government court filings.\u003c/p>\n\n\u003c/div>\u003c/p>",
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"disqusTitle": "Lofgren Introduces Bill to Address Root Causes of Migration From Central America",
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"content": "\u003cp>San Jose congresswoman Zoe Lofgren introduced legislation Thursday to address crippling violence, government dysfunction and poverty in Central America, which has led scores of people to flee the region and seek asylum in the U.S.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\"The worst place to deal with a regional humanitarian crisis is at our own border. And we know that people are leaving for a reason,\" said Lofgren, a Democrat and former immigration lawyer, who chairs the House Judiciary Subcommittee on Immigration and Citizenship.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The announcement comes just days after a \u003ca href=\"https://www.cnn.com/2019/06/26/politics/mexico-father-daughter-dead-rio-grande-wednesday/index.html\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">drowned Salvadoran father\u003c/a> and his 23-month-old daughter were discovered and photographed face-down on the banks of the Rio Grande. Oscar Alberto Martinez and his toddler, Angie Valeria, had reportedly been waiting for months in Mexico to request asylum at an official port of entry before they attempted to cross the river.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Lofgren’s Northern Triangle and Border Stabilization Act would require the State Department to submit a five-year strategy to Congress geared at combating corruption and strengthening the rule of law in El Salvador, Guatemala and Honduras.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The bill, which calls for the U.S. to consult with nonprofits, regional governments and the Inter-American Development Bank, offers a remarkably different approach from the hard-line immigration enforcement priorities pushed by President Trump.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[aside label=\"related stories\" tag=\"border\"]\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>At the president’s behest, officials with the State Department announced this month they are cutting \u003ca href=\"https://www.huffpost.com/entry/united-states-foreign-aid-central-america-migrant-action_n_5d080db3e4b0886dd15d93cb\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">$370 million\u003c/a> in aid to Central America.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Trump has berated so-called Northern Triangle countries for not doing more to prevent thousands of their citizens from coming to the U.S. He has also threatened to impose steep tariffs on Mexico, and even close the border altogether.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>In the last eight months, U.S. border officials arrested significantly more parents with children than at any time since 2013, when the agency began tracking family units. Asylum applications increased by nearly 70% between 2017 and 2018, according to government figures.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\"What he’s doing is clearly not working,\" Lofgren told KQED on Wednesday. \"In fact, what he’s doing is making things much worse. We cannot continue on the path the president is leading us on.\"\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Lofgren’s bill would provide resources to hire additional U.S. immigration judges to tackle a backlog of more than 908,000 \u003ca href=\"https://trac.syr.edu/phptools/immigration/court_backlog/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">pending cases\u003c/a> nationwide. It would also fund improvements at border detention facilities to improve care for women and children and allow more Central Americans to apply for asylum protection from their home countries.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“The Lofgren bill is, I think, a really constructive start to getting it right,” said Dan Restrepo, a senior fellow at the left-leaning Center for American Progress, who served as an adviser on Latin America to President Barack Obama.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[ad fullwidth]\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Restrepo said that the Trump administration has already canceled a range of effective U.S. aid programs in Central America — from violence prevention to climate mitigation for farmers.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“A lot of times people in this argument say that we don't know what to do. And that's just not true,” said Restrepo. “We have programs that have worked in the real world in these countries that, for whatever reason, this president decided to stop doing. And predictably, migration has gotten worse in terms of the larger number of people fleeing these countries.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Lofgren said her proposal would reward Central American governments and organizations that fight corruption and tie funds to measurable improvements in reducing gang violence and strengthening regional legal and educational systems. The bill, however, does not yet outline a specific budget to pay for the proposed plans.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“But I’ll tell you what — we are spending an enormous amount of money at our southern border with very little results,” she added.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Earlier this week, the House and Senate separately \u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/news/11757496/as-senate-approves-border-spending-bill-california-lawmakers-fight-for-more-safeguards\">approved\u003c/a> roughly $4.5 billion in emergency funding to handle the surge of migrants at the border. The bills, however, contain strikingly different proposals for how the funding should be allocated. The two chambers must now reconcile differences in the competing pieces of legislation before sending a final bill to Trump, who has suggested he would veto anything resembling the House's version.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003cp>San Jose congresswoman Zoe Lofgren introduced legislation Thursday to address crippling violence, government dysfunction and poverty in Central America, which has led scores of people to flee the region and seek asylum in the U.S.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\"The worst place to deal with a regional humanitarian crisis is at our own border. And we know that people are leaving for a reason,\" said Lofgren, a Democrat and former immigration lawyer, who chairs the House Judiciary Subcommittee on Immigration and Citizenship.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The announcement comes just days after a \u003ca href=\"https://www.cnn.com/2019/06/26/politics/mexico-father-daughter-dead-rio-grande-wednesday/index.html\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">drowned Salvadoran father\u003c/a> and his 23-month-old daughter were discovered and photographed face-down on the banks of the Rio Grande. Oscar Alberto Martinez and his toddler, Angie Valeria, had reportedly been waiting for months in Mexico to request asylum at an official port of entry before they attempted to cross the river.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Lofgren’s Northern Triangle and Border Stabilization Act would require the State Department to submit a five-year strategy to Congress geared at combating corruption and strengthening the rule of law in El Salvador, Guatemala and Honduras.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The bill, which calls for the U.S. to consult with nonprofits, regional governments and the Inter-American Development Bank, offers a remarkably different approach from the hard-line immigration enforcement priorities pushed by President Trump.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>At the president’s behest, officials with the State Department announced this month they are cutting \u003ca href=\"https://www.huffpost.com/entry/united-states-foreign-aid-central-america-migrant-action_n_5d080db3e4b0886dd15d93cb\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">$370 million\u003c/a> in aid to Central America.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Trump has berated so-called Northern Triangle countries for not doing more to prevent thousands of their citizens from coming to the U.S. He has also threatened to impose steep tariffs on Mexico, and even close the border altogether.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>In the last eight months, U.S. border officials arrested significantly more parents with children than at any time since 2013, when the agency began tracking family units. Asylum applications increased by nearly 70% between 2017 and 2018, according to government figures.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\"What he’s doing is clearly not working,\" Lofgren told KQED on Wednesday. \"In fact, what he’s doing is making things much worse. We cannot continue on the path the president is leading us on.\"\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Lofgren’s bill would provide resources to hire additional U.S. immigration judges to tackle a backlog of more than 908,000 \u003ca href=\"https://trac.syr.edu/phptools/immigration/court_backlog/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">pending cases\u003c/a> nationwide. It would also fund improvements at border detention facilities to improve care for women and children and allow more Central Americans to apply for asylum protection from their home countries.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“The Lofgren bill is, I think, a really constructive start to getting it right,” said Dan Restrepo, a senior fellow at the left-leaning Center for American Progress, who served as an adviser on Latin America to President Barack Obama.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Restrepo said that the Trump administration has already canceled a range of effective U.S. aid programs in Central America — from violence prevention to climate mitigation for farmers.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“A lot of times people in this argument say that we don't know what to do. And that's just not true,” said Restrepo. “We have programs that have worked in the real world in these countries that, for whatever reason, this president decided to stop doing. And predictably, migration has gotten worse in terms of the larger number of people fleeing these countries.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Lofgren said her proposal would reward Central American governments and organizations that fight corruption and tie funds to measurable improvements in reducing gang violence and strengthening regional legal and educational systems. The bill, however, does not yet outline a specific budget to pay for the proposed plans.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“But I’ll tell you what — we are spending an enormous amount of money at our southern border with very little results,” she added.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Earlier this week, the House and Senate separately \u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/news/11757496/as-senate-approves-border-spending-bill-california-lawmakers-fight-for-more-safeguards\">approved\u003c/a> roughly $4.5 billion in emergency funding to handle the surge of migrants at the border. The bills, however, contain strikingly different proposals for how the funding should be allocated. The two chambers must now reconcile differences in the competing pieces of legislation before sending a final bill to Trump, who has suggested he would veto anything resembling the House's version.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003c/div>\u003c/p>",
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"disqusTitle": "Hispanic Unemployment Has Hit Record Lows. But Does That Mean Progress?",
"title": "Hispanic Unemployment Has Hit Record Lows. But Does That Mean Progress?",
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"content": "\u003cp>With the economy booming, Ernesto Martinez can barely keep up with all the construction work coming into the small drywall company he owns. He's part of a historic wave of Latino prosperity in America.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>It wasn't always like this. Martinez remembers when he was 17. He had $120 to his name, and it was all in his pocket. It's how much he got paid for his first job in the U.S., as a mover. He says he stood there, mesmerized, in front of a shop window at the mall.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Martinez was looking at a pair of Air Jordans. They cost around $100.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\"I fell in love with them,\" he says. He didn't speak English, so he turned to his brother and said, \"Ask them to bring me a size 8.\"\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\"What do you want those shoes for?\" his brother responded disapprovingly.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[ad fullwidth]\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Martinez says that's when he decided to learn English, so he could go back and get the shoes.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_11749987\" class=\"wp-caption alignnone\" style=\"max-width: 800px\">\u003ca href=\"https://ww2.kqed.org/news/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2019/05/ms_npr_alondra_0016-edit_custom-fb887241fbd26f828cc6f573350b2f8d77985afe-s800-c85.jpg\">\u003cimg class=\"size-full wp-image-11749987\" src=\"https://ww2.kqed.org/news/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2019/05/ms_npr_alondra_0016-edit_custom-fb887241fbd26f828cc6f573350b2f8d77985afe-s800-c85.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"800\" height=\"532\" srcset=\"https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/10/2019/05/ms_npr_alondra_0016-edit_custom-fb887241fbd26f828cc6f573350b2f8d77985afe-s800-c85.jpg 800w, https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/10/2019/05/ms_npr_alondra_0016-edit_custom-fb887241fbd26f828cc6f573350b2f8d77985afe-s800-c85-160x106.jpg 160w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 800px) 100vw, 800px\">\u003c/a>\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Alondra, the daughter of Ernesto and Araceli, stands next to the Statue of Liberty in a family photo. \u003ccite>(Mohamed Sadek/NPR)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>He had just arrived from Mexico. It was the 1990s, and cultural critics spoke of a \u003ca href=\"http://www.dctvny.org/events/latinexplosion\">\"Latin explosion\"\u003c/a>: Over the next two decades the Hispanic population would grow from 22.4 million people, to 50.5 million. But the numbers did not translate into power, or well-being: The 2000 census reported they had \u003ca href=\"https://www.census.gov/library/publications/2001/demo/p60-214.html\">a poverty rate of 21.2%\u003c/a> — nearly double the overall U.S. rate.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Martinez's wife, Araceli, had three cleaning jobs, but it was still hard to get by. She says the owners of one of the hotels where she worked made her do heavy lifting — such as moving furniture.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>It was grueling, but she just couldn't afford to lose that job.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Across the U.S. today, there are plenty of jobs. Unemployment for Latinos is at 4.2% — the lowest in recorded history. And their poverty rate has gone down somewhat, to 18.3%.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003ca href=\"https://apps.npr.org/dailygraphics/graphics/full-employment-lines-20190507?mode=childlink&utm_source=nprnews&utm_medium=app&utm_campaign=storyredirect\">\u003cem>\u003cstrong>Don't see the graphic above? Click here.\u003c/strong>\u003c/em>\u003c/a>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>For the Martinez family, things have improved dramatically.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>On a rainy Sunday afternoon, Araceli shows a reporter around her home in New Jersey. She and Ernesto were able to buy it in the early 2000s. It's beautiful, with an expansive backyard.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>And it takes a lot of work to afford this place.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_11749988\" class=\"wp-caption alignnone\" style=\"max-width: 800px\">\u003ca href=\"https://ww2.kqed.org/news/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2019/05/ms_npr_alondra_0014-edit_custom-7e6d315c8922b9a1a1b91ebb08912f2c02e29bb0-s800-c85.jpg\">\u003cimg class=\"size-full wp-image-11749988\" src=\"https://ww2.kqed.org/news/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2019/05/ms_npr_alondra_0014-edit_custom-7e6d315c8922b9a1a1b91ebb08912f2c02e29bb0-s800-c85.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"800\" height=\"532\" srcset=\"https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/10/2019/05/ms_npr_alondra_0014-edit_custom-7e6d315c8922b9a1a1b91ebb08912f2c02e29bb0-s800-c85.jpg 800w, https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/10/2019/05/ms_npr_alondra_0014-edit_custom-7e6d315c8922b9a1a1b91ebb08912f2c02e29bb0-s800-c85-160x106.jpg 160w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 800px) 100vw, 800px\">\u003c/a>\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Alondra (left) and her mother, Araceli, look through family photographs after a Sunday Mass and family lunch. Araceli has three jobs to provide for her family. \u003ccite>(Mohamed Sadek/NPR)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>Araceli still has three jobs: house cleaner, supermarket cashier and assistant at a day care. Both she and Ernesto say their incomes have barely budged in the past decade. But the cost of living has gone up. \"Sometimes you have to have two or three jobs to make ends meet,\" Araceli says. \"Everything is expensive. Food, utilities, car insurance.\"\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>So, despite low unemployment numbers, economists urge caution.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Yes, joblessness is down, and that's great. But Hispanics earn about one-fourth less than white workers do. And for some \u003ca href=\"https://www.pewhispanic.org/2018/11/27/u-s-unauthorized-immigrant-total-dips-to-lowest-level-in-a-decade/\">7 million\u003c/a> Central American and Mexican immigrants who don't have legal status, it's even harder to move up. Being undocumented often leads to exploitation. It makes it harder to get an education. It forces people to work for low wages in the informal economy. It makes it difficult to start and build a company.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003ca href=\"https://apps.npr.org/dailygraphics/graphics/full-employment-lines-earnings-20190507?mode=childlink&utm_source=nprnews&utm_medium=app&utm_campaign=storyredirect\">\u003cem>\u003cstrong>Don't see the graphic above? Click here.\u003c/strong>\u003c/em>\u003c/a>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Which is why, for all the talk about the Latin cultural explosion and unemployment going down, some academics and activists worry about the formation of \u003ca href=\"https://web.stanford.edu/group/scspi/media/_media/working_papers/massey_new-latino-underclass.pdf\">a permanent Hispanic underclass\u003c/a> in America.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_11749991\" class=\"wp-caption alignright\" style=\"max-width: 300px\">\u003ca href=\"https://ww2.kqed.org/news/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2019/05/ms_npr_alondra_0010-edit_custom-ec7d19e8f9d8fd29fef65b7d1740a3d2aa4a29a7-s300-c85.jpg\">\u003cimg class=\"size-full wp-image-11749991\" src=\"https://ww2.kqed.org/news/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2019/05/ms_npr_alondra_0010-edit_custom-ec7d19e8f9d8fd29fef65b7d1740a3d2aa4a29a7-s300-c85.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"300\" height=\"450\" srcset=\"https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/10/2019/05/ms_npr_alondra_0010-edit_custom-ec7d19e8f9d8fd29fef65b7d1740a3d2aa4a29a7-s300-c85.jpg 300w, https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/10/2019/05/ms_npr_alondra_0010-edit_custom-ec7d19e8f9d8fd29fef65b7d1740a3d2aa4a29a7-s300-c85-160x240.jpg 160w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 300px) 100vw, 300px\">\u003c/a>\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Araceli sits in front of a photo of her daughter. Alondra is part of the record number of Hispanics enrolling in college. \u003ccite>(Mohamed Sadek/NPR)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>But Ernesto and Araceli say they see a really bright future. And it's because of their daughter.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Alondra is 22 years old. She's the eldest of the two Martinez kids. When they were born, Ernesto says, he had a clear vision: He didn't want to see them doing drywall. \"I want them to have a 9-to-5 job. I want them to be well-dressed and not dirty like we get dirty,\" he says.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>As soon as Alondra was born, Ernesto started saving for her to go to college.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>But as Alondra got older, she didn't see herself as the kind of person who goes into higher education. \"Growing up, I was very aware of the kind of family I came from. When you don't have lawyers and doctors and people with careers in your family, you think it's so far-fetched. And it's like, so much money,\" she says.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>A high school Spanish teacher spoke to her about New Jersey's Educational Opportunity Fund, the state's support program for students from disadvantaged backgrounds.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>That's how Alondra ended up going to Montclair State University. She's part of the record number of Hispanics going to college: Enrollment \u003ca href=\"https://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2017/09/29/hispanic-dropout-rate-hits-new-low-college-enrollment-at-new-high/\">nearly tripled\u003c/a> between 1999 and 2016.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>At this years graduation ceremony for students in the \u003ca href=\"https://www.nj.gov/highereducation/EOF/EOF_Description.shtml\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">Educational Opportunity Fund program\u003c/a>, she gave a speech. Alondra was nervous at first.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_11749989\" class=\"wp-caption alignnone\" style=\"max-width: 800px\">\u003ca href=\"https://ww2.kqed.org/news/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2019/05/msu-img_1037_custom-a020acd297c790b4d2f95c9fa7fcd0400f88182b-s800-c85.jpg\">\u003cimg class=\"size-full wp-image-11749989\" src=\"https://ww2.kqed.org/news/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2019/05/msu-img_1037_custom-a020acd297c790b4d2f95c9fa7fcd0400f88182b-s800-c85.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"800\" height=\"532\" srcset=\"https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/10/2019/05/msu-img_1037_custom-a020acd297c790b4d2f95c9fa7fcd0400f88182b-s800-c85.jpg 800w, https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/10/2019/05/msu-img_1037_custom-a020acd297c790b4d2f95c9fa7fcd0400f88182b-s800-c85-160x106.jpg 160w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 800px) 100vw, 800px\">\u003c/a>\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Alondra (center) recently graduated from Montclair State University. She's part of the record number of Hispanics going to college: Enrollment nearly tripled between 1999 and 2016. \u003ccite>(Mohamed Sadek/NPR)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>\"Being a first-generation college student means breaking every barrier, silencing every negative voice and pushing myself to be the woman I know I am meant to be,\" she said.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Then she turned to her parents. \"Mamá, papá, lo logramos,\" she said. Mom, dad, we made it.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>This fall, Alondra will be going to Rutgers University to pursue a master's degree in college student affairs. She dreams of being a college dean someday.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_11749990\" class=\"wp-caption alignnone\" style=\"max-width: 800px\">\u003ca href=\"https://ww2.kqed.org/news/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2019/05/ms_npr_alondra_0037-edit_custom-37d14bc71e1b11552ff79b9f777ebca53a4209b4-s800-c85.jpg\">\u003cimg class=\"size-full wp-image-11749990\" src=\"https://ww2.kqed.org/news/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2019/05/ms_npr_alondra_0037-edit_custom-37d14bc71e1b11552ff79b9f777ebca53a4209b4-s800-c85.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"800\" height=\"532\" srcset=\"https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/10/2019/05/ms_npr_alondra_0037-edit_custom-37d14bc71e1b11552ff79b9f777ebca53a4209b4-s800-c85.jpg 800w, https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/10/2019/05/ms_npr_alondra_0037-edit_custom-37d14bc71e1b11552ff79b9f777ebca53a4209b4-s800-c85-160x106.jpg 160w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 800px) 100vw, 800px\">\u003c/a>\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Alondra Martinez shows her father Ernesto the dress she picked out for her graduation party. The Martinez family is part of a historic wave of Latino prosperity in America. \u003ccite>(Mohamed Sadek/NPR)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>Ernesto marvels at this. This generation's goal is to be lawyers, engineers and architects.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\"That is their dream,\" he says. \"And what was my dream?\"\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Nearly 30 years ago, it was a pair of Air Jordans.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cem>Copyright 2019 \u003ca href=\"https://www.npr.org\" rel=\"noopener\" target=\"_blank\">NPR\u003c/a>. \u003c/em>\u003c/p>\n\n",
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"excerpt": "Latino joblessness has dipped to historic lows. But many economists are taking those numbers with caution: There's still a gaping wage difference with white workers.",
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"description": "Latino joblessness has dipped to historic lows. But many economists are taking those numbers with caution: There's still a gaping wage difference with white workers.",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003cp>With the economy booming, Ernesto Martinez can barely keep up with all the construction work coming into the small drywall company he owns. He's part of a historic wave of Latino prosperity in America.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>It wasn't always like this. Martinez remembers when he was 17. He had $120 to his name, and it was all in his pocket. It's how much he got paid for his first job in the U.S., as a mover. He says he stood there, mesmerized, in front of a shop window at the mall.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Martinez was looking at a pair of Air Jordans. They cost around $100.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\"I fell in love with them,\" he says. He didn't speak English, so he turned to his brother and said, \"Ask them to bring me a size 8.\"\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\"What do you want those shoes for?\" his brother responded disapprovingly.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Martinez says that's when he decided to learn English, so he could go back and get the shoes.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_11749987\" class=\"wp-caption alignnone\" style=\"max-width: 800px\">\u003ca href=\"https://ww2.kqed.org/news/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2019/05/ms_npr_alondra_0016-edit_custom-fb887241fbd26f828cc6f573350b2f8d77985afe-s800-c85.jpg\">\u003cimg class=\"size-full wp-image-11749987\" src=\"https://ww2.kqed.org/news/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2019/05/ms_npr_alondra_0016-edit_custom-fb887241fbd26f828cc6f573350b2f8d77985afe-s800-c85.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"800\" height=\"532\" srcset=\"https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/10/2019/05/ms_npr_alondra_0016-edit_custom-fb887241fbd26f828cc6f573350b2f8d77985afe-s800-c85.jpg 800w, https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/10/2019/05/ms_npr_alondra_0016-edit_custom-fb887241fbd26f828cc6f573350b2f8d77985afe-s800-c85-160x106.jpg 160w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 800px) 100vw, 800px\">\u003c/a>\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Alondra, the daughter of Ernesto and Araceli, stands next to the Statue of Liberty in a family photo. \u003ccite>(Mohamed Sadek/NPR)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>He had just arrived from Mexico. It was the 1990s, and cultural critics spoke of a \u003ca href=\"http://www.dctvny.org/events/latinexplosion\">\"Latin explosion\"\u003c/a>: Over the next two decades the Hispanic population would grow from 22.4 million people, to 50.5 million. But the numbers did not translate into power, or well-being: The 2000 census reported they had \u003ca href=\"https://www.census.gov/library/publications/2001/demo/p60-214.html\">a poverty rate of 21.2%\u003c/a> — nearly double the overall U.S. rate.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Martinez's wife, Araceli, had three cleaning jobs, but it was still hard to get by. She says the owners of one of the hotels where she worked made her do heavy lifting — such as moving furniture.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>It was grueling, but she just couldn't afford to lose that job.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Across the U.S. today, there are plenty of jobs. Unemployment for Latinos is at 4.2% — the lowest in recorded history. And their poverty rate has gone down somewhat, to 18.3%.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003ca href=\"https://apps.npr.org/dailygraphics/graphics/full-employment-lines-20190507?mode=childlink&utm_source=nprnews&utm_medium=app&utm_campaign=storyredirect\">\u003cem>\u003cstrong>Don't see the graphic above? Click here.\u003c/strong>\u003c/em>\u003c/a>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>For the Martinez family, things have improved dramatically.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>On a rainy Sunday afternoon, Araceli shows a reporter around her home in New Jersey. She and Ernesto were able to buy it in the early 2000s. It's beautiful, with an expansive backyard.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>And it takes a lot of work to afford this place.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_11749988\" class=\"wp-caption alignnone\" style=\"max-width: 800px\">\u003ca href=\"https://ww2.kqed.org/news/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2019/05/ms_npr_alondra_0014-edit_custom-7e6d315c8922b9a1a1b91ebb08912f2c02e29bb0-s800-c85.jpg\">\u003cimg class=\"size-full wp-image-11749988\" src=\"https://ww2.kqed.org/news/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2019/05/ms_npr_alondra_0014-edit_custom-7e6d315c8922b9a1a1b91ebb08912f2c02e29bb0-s800-c85.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"800\" height=\"532\" srcset=\"https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/10/2019/05/ms_npr_alondra_0014-edit_custom-7e6d315c8922b9a1a1b91ebb08912f2c02e29bb0-s800-c85.jpg 800w, https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/10/2019/05/ms_npr_alondra_0014-edit_custom-7e6d315c8922b9a1a1b91ebb08912f2c02e29bb0-s800-c85-160x106.jpg 160w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 800px) 100vw, 800px\">\u003c/a>\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Alondra (left) and her mother, Araceli, look through family photographs after a Sunday Mass and family lunch. Araceli has three jobs to provide for her family. \u003ccite>(Mohamed Sadek/NPR)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>Araceli still has three jobs: house cleaner, supermarket cashier and assistant at a day care. Both she and Ernesto say their incomes have barely budged in the past decade. But the cost of living has gone up. \"Sometimes you have to have two or three jobs to make ends meet,\" Araceli says. \"Everything is expensive. Food, utilities, car insurance.\"\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>So, despite low unemployment numbers, economists urge caution.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Yes, joblessness is down, and that's great. But Hispanics earn about one-fourth less than white workers do. And for some \u003ca href=\"https://www.pewhispanic.org/2018/11/27/u-s-unauthorized-immigrant-total-dips-to-lowest-level-in-a-decade/\">7 million\u003c/a> Central American and Mexican immigrants who don't have legal status, it's even harder to move up. Being undocumented often leads to exploitation. It makes it harder to get an education. It forces people to work for low wages in the informal economy. It makes it difficult to start and build a company.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003ca href=\"https://apps.npr.org/dailygraphics/graphics/full-employment-lines-earnings-20190507?mode=childlink&utm_source=nprnews&utm_medium=app&utm_campaign=storyredirect\">\u003cem>\u003cstrong>Don't see the graphic above? Click here.\u003c/strong>\u003c/em>\u003c/a>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Which is why, for all the talk about the Latin cultural explosion and unemployment going down, some academics and activists worry about the formation of \u003ca href=\"https://web.stanford.edu/group/scspi/media/_media/working_papers/massey_new-latino-underclass.pdf\">a permanent Hispanic underclass\u003c/a> in America.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_11749991\" class=\"wp-caption alignright\" style=\"max-width: 300px\">\u003ca href=\"https://ww2.kqed.org/news/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2019/05/ms_npr_alondra_0010-edit_custom-ec7d19e8f9d8fd29fef65b7d1740a3d2aa4a29a7-s300-c85.jpg\">\u003cimg class=\"size-full wp-image-11749991\" src=\"https://ww2.kqed.org/news/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2019/05/ms_npr_alondra_0010-edit_custom-ec7d19e8f9d8fd29fef65b7d1740a3d2aa4a29a7-s300-c85.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"300\" height=\"450\" srcset=\"https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/10/2019/05/ms_npr_alondra_0010-edit_custom-ec7d19e8f9d8fd29fef65b7d1740a3d2aa4a29a7-s300-c85.jpg 300w, https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/10/2019/05/ms_npr_alondra_0010-edit_custom-ec7d19e8f9d8fd29fef65b7d1740a3d2aa4a29a7-s300-c85-160x240.jpg 160w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 300px) 100vw, 300px\">\u003c/a>\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Araceli sits in front of a photo of her daughter. Alondra is part of the record number of Hispanics enrolling in college. \u003ccite>(Mohamed Sadek/NPR)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>But Ernesto and Araceli say they see a really bright future. And it's because of their daughter.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Alondra is 22 years old. She's the eldest of the two Martinez kids. When they were born, Ernesto says, he had a clear vision: He didn't want to see them doing drywall. \"I want them to have a 9-to-5 job. I want them to be well-dressed and not dirty like we get dirty,\" he says.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>As soon as Alondra was born, Ernesto started saving for her to go to college.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>But as Alondra got older, she didn't see herself as the kind of person who goes into higher education. \"Growing up, I was very aware of the kind of family I came from. When you don't have lawyers and doctors and people with careers in your family, you think it's so far-fetched. And it's like, so much money,\" she says.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>A high school Spanish teacher spoke to her about New Jersey's Educational Opportunity Fund, the state's support program for students from disadvantaged backgrounds.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>That's how Alondra ended up going to Montclair State University. She's part of the record number of Hispanics going to college: Enrollment \u003ca href=\"https://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2017/09/29/hispanic-dropout-rate-hits-new-low-college-enrollment-at-new-high/\">nearly tripled\u003c/a> between 1999 and 2016.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>At this years graduation ceremony for students in the \u003ca href=\"https://www.nj.gov/highereducation/EOF/EOF_Description.shtml\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">Educational Opportunity Fund program\u003c/a>, she gave a speech. Alondra was nervous at first.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_11749989\" class=\"wp-caption alignnone\" style=\"max-width: 800px\">\u003ca href=\"https://ww2.kqed.org/news/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2019/05/msu-img_1037_custom-a020acd297c790b4d2f95c9fa7fcd0400f88182b-s800-c85.jpg\">\u003cimg class=\"size-full wp-image-11749989\" src=\"https://ww2.kqed.org/news/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2019/05/msu-img_1037_custom-a020acd297c790b4d2f95c9fa7fcd0400f88182b-s800-c85.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"800\" height=\"532\" srcset=\"https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/10/2019/05/msu-img_1037_custom-a020acd297c790b4d2f95c9fa7fcd0400f88182b-s800-c85.jpg 800w, https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/10/2019/05/msu-img_1037_custom-a020acd297c790b4d2f95c9fa7fcd0400f88182b-s800-c85-160x106.jpg 160w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 800px) 100vw, 800px\">\u003c/a>\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Alondra (center) recently graduated from Montclair State University. She's part of the record number of Hispanics going to college: Enrollment nearly tripled between 1999 and 2016. \u003ccite>(Mohamed Sadek/NPR)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>\"Being a first-generation college student means breaking every barrier, silencing every negative voice and pushing myself to be the woman I know I am meant to be,\" she said.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Then she turned to her parents. \"Mamá, papá, lo logramos,\" she said. Mom, dad, we made it.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>This fall, Alondra will be going to Rutgers University to pursue a master's degree in college student affairs. She dreams of being a college dean someday.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_11749990\" class=\"wp-caption alignnone\" style=\"max-width: 800px\">\u003ca href=\"https://ww2.kqed.org/news/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2019/05/ms_npr_alondra_0037-edit_custom-37d14bc71e1b11552ff79b9f777ebca53a4209b4-s800-c85.jpg\">\u003cimg class=\"size-full wp-image-11749990\" src=\"https://ww2.kqed.org/news/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2019/05/ms_npr_alondra_0037-edit_custom-37d14bc71e1b11552ff79b9f777ebca53a4209b4-s800-c85.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"800\" height=\"532\" srcset=\"https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/10/2019/05/ms_npr_alondra_0037-edit_custom-37d14bc71e1b11552ff79b9f777ebca53a4209b4-s800-c85.jpg 800w, https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/10/2019/05/ms_npr_alondra_0037-edit_custom-37d14bc71e1b11552ff79b9f777ebca53a4209b4-s800-c85-160x106.jpg 160w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 800px) 100vw, 800px\">\u003c/a>\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Alondra Martinez shows her father Ernesto the dress she picked out for her graduation party. The Martinez family is part of a historic wave of Latino prosperity in America. \u003ccite>(Mohamed Sadek/NPR)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>Ernesto marvels at this. This generation's goal is to be lawyers, engineers and architects.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\"That is their dream,\" he says. \"And what was my dream?\"\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Nearly 30 years ago, it was a pair of Air Jordans.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cem>Copyright 2019 \u003ca href=\"https://www.npr.org\" rel=\"noopener\" target=\"_blank\">NPR\u003c/a>. \u003c/em>\u003c/p>\n\n\u003c/div>\u003c/p>",
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"disqusTitle": "Trump Calls for Asylum-Seekers to Pay Fees, Proposing New Restrictions",
"title": "Trump Calls for Asylum-Seekers to Pay Fees, Proposing New Restrictions",
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"content": "\u003cp>President Trump is calling for his administration to restrict the asylum process, issuing \u003ca href=\"https://www.whitehouse.gov/presidential-actions/presidential-memorandum-additional-measures-enhance-border-security-restore-integrity-immigration-system/\">a presidential memorandum\u003c/a> that proposes charging asylum-seekers fees and other broad changes.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Trump's proposals were widely criticized by Democrats and immigration advocates, who predicted a new legal battle over the president's policy.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\"Seeking asylum is a right under U.S. and international law — not a privilege to pay for,\" said \u003ca href=\"https://twitter.com/RepRaulGrijalva/status/1123309823905476610\">Rep. Raul Grijalva of Arizona\u003c/a>.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[aside label=\"Asylum-Seekers and Immigration Policy\" tag=\"asylum-seekers\"]\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>In the memo, Trump said he is giving Attorney General William Barr and acting Homeland Security Secretary Kevin McAleenan 90 days to propose new regulations to speed up the processing of asylum claims, charge application fees for those seeking asylum, and to bar work authorization for certain applicants.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Issued Monday evening, the memo also calls on Homeland Security personnel to \"improve the integrity\" of credible fear determinations, and to prioritize the deportation of immigrants who have received final orders of removal.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Trump often mocks the asylum system, calling it a \"loophole\" that attracts immigrants to the U.S. This memo is the Trump administration's latest effort to make it harder for migrants to stay in the country, and it comes amid a spike in border crossings, including a large number of families seeking asylum. \u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Trump \u003ca href=\"https://twitter.com/realdonaldtrump/status/1123035192262823936\">derided\u003c/a> the current immigration laws as \"weak, ineffective and dangerous,\" but he has made little effort to work with Congress to change them.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>In response to Trump's proposals, immigrants' rights advocates said they found the idea of charging asylum-seekers fees to process their applications to be particularly egregious.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\"[T]he idea that we will charge asylum seekers a fee to seek refuge from persecution, torture, or death is offensive and counter to our values,\" the American Civil Liberties Union \u003ca href=\"https://twitter.com/ACLU/status/1123274134170087424\">tweeted\u003c/a>.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The Immigration and Nationality Act already includes \u003ca href=\"https://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/text/8/1158\">a provision\u003c/a> that permits the U.S. to impose fees on foreign nationals seeking asylum or work authorization.\u003cstrong> \u003c/strong>But critics say such fees may be impossible for many asylum-seekers to pay, unless financial waivers are granted liberally.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[ad fullwidth]\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Melissa Crow, senior supervising attorney at the Southern Poverty Law Center, says the memorandum is another in a string of the Trump administration's attacks on vulnerable asylum-seekers. \"We've seen it over and over again, from turning away asylum-seekers at ports of entry, to trying to make those who enter between ports of entry ineligible for asylum, and most recently until now, sending asylum-seekers back to Mexico to wait for their court hearings,\" she says. \"The Trump administration has had their hand slapped numerous times by the courts, and I suspect that this time will be no different.\"\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>It's too soon to tell exactly how the proposed measures would play out for asylum-seekers, because the actual regulations have yet to be written by the attorney general and DHS. But Crow says one of her concerns is that the proposed changes could prevent migrants from applying for different types of relief for which they may be eligible.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>When migrants come to the U.S. border and express a desire to apply for asylum, the first step is often the credible-fear interview, in which they must convince an asylum officer that they have a credible fear of returning home. \u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[aside label=\"Migration and Central America\" tag=\"central-america\"]\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>If they make it over that hurdle, they can apply for any type of relief that's available to them. For instance, people who were trafficked can apply for a \u003ca href=\"https://www.uscis.gov/humanitarian/victims-human-trafficking-other-crimes\">T visa\u003c/a>, and young people who have been abused, abandoned or neglected by a parent may apply for \u003ca href=\"https://www.uscis.gov/green-card/sij\">special immigrant juvenile status\u003c/a>.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>But with the proposed changes, Crow worries people may only be referred for asylum or withholding of removal proceedings — categories that have different standards and which aren't available to some people, including those who have previously been deported and then unlawfully reentered the country.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>As it released Trump's memo, the White House included \u003ca href=\"https://www.whitehouse.gov/briefings-statements/president-donald-j-trump-working-stop-abuse-asylum-system-address-root-causes-border-crisis/\">a sheet of statistics and arguments\u003c/a> to bolster its case. \"Our immigration system has reached a breaking point as we continue to see an overwhelming surge of migrants, with more than 100,000 arriving at our border in March alone,\" it states. \"As a result of loopholes in United States immigration law, migrants claiming fear are often released into communities across the United States, where they often remain indefinitely.\"\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The memo also proposes regulations to require nearly all asylum applications to be decided in immigration court within 180 days of filing, not including appeals. U.S. immigration courts are notoriously backlogged, and it's not clear whether the proposed changes would also provide additional resources as they aim to speed up the courts' work.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Whatever the final language of the proposed regulations, they are likely to be challenged in court.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Crow says she sees an irony in the administration's latest moves to crack down on asylum-seekers, noting that \u003ca href=\"https://www.npr.org/2019/04/02/709089322/u-s-decision-to-cut-central-american-aid-could-worsen-migrant-crisis-experts-say\">the U.S. has recently cut off aid to El Salvador, Guatemala, and Honduras\u003c/a> — a move that's unlikely to improve the quality of life in countries that are among the biggest producers of people seeking asylum.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>And when people in those countries seek a better life, Crow says, \"we're making it even more difficult for them to reach safety once they flee.\"\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cem>NPR White House correspondent Tamara Keith contributed to this report.\u003c/em> \u003c/p>\n\u003cdiv class=\"fullattribution\">Copyright 2019 NPR. To see more, visit https://www.npr.org.\u003cimg src=\"https://www.google-analytics.com/__utm.gif?utmac=UA-5828686-4&utmdt=Trump+Calls+For+Asylum-Seekers+To+Pay+Fees%2C+Proposing+New+Restrictions&utme=8(APIKey)9(MDAxOTAwOTE4MDEyMTkxMDAzNjczZDljZA004)\">\u003c/div>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n",
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"excerpt": "The president called for measures to close what he calls the asylum \"loophole\" amid a spike in border crossings. Critics say the proposal is an attack on vulnerable migrants.",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003cp>President Trump is calling for his administration to restrict the asylum process, issuing \u003ca href=\"https://www.whitehouse.gov/presidential-actions/presidential-memorandum-additional-measures-enhance-border-security-restore-integrity-immigration-system/\">a presidential memorandum\u003c/a> that proposes charging asylum-seekers fees and other broad changes.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Trump's proposals were widely criticized by Democrats and immigration advocates, who predicted a new legal battle over the president's policy.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\"Seeking asylum is a right under U.S. and international law — not a privilege to pay for,\" said \u003ca href=\"https://twitter.com/RepRaulGrijalva/status/1123309823905476610\">Rep. Raul Grijalva of Arizona\u003c/a>.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>In the memo, Trump said he is giving Attorney General William Barr and acting Homeland Security Secretary Kevin McAleenan 90 days to propose new regulations to speed up the processing of asylum claims, charge application fees for those seeking asylum, and to bar work authorization for certain applicants.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Issued Monday evening, the memo also calls on Homeland Security personnel to \"improve the integrity\" of credible fear determinations, and to prioritize the deportation of immigrants who have received final orders of removal.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Trump often mocks the asylum system, calling it a \"loophole\" that attracts immigrants to the U.S. This memo is the Trump administration's latest effort to make it harder for migrants to stay in the country, and it comes amid a spike in border crossings, including a large number of families seeking asylum. \u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Trump \u003ca href=\"https://twitter.com/realdonaldtrump/status/1123035192262823936\">derided\u003c/a> the current immigration laws as \"weak, ineffective and dangerous,\" but he has made little effort to work with Congress to change them.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>In response to Trump's proposals, immigrants' rights advocates said they found the idea of charging asylum-seekers fees to process their applications to be particularly egregious.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\"[T]he idea that we will charge asylum seekers a fee to seek refuge from persecution, torture, or death is offensive and counter to our values,\" the American Civil Liberties Union \u003ca href=\"https://twitter.com/ACLU/status/1123274134170087424\">tweeted\u003c/a>.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The Immigration and Nationality Act already includes \u003ca href=\"https://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/text/8/1158\">a provision\u003c/a> that permits the U.S. to impose fees on foreign nationals seeking asylum or work authorization.\u003cstrong> \u003c/strong>But critics say such fees may be impossible for many asylum-seekers to pay, unless financial waivers are granted liberally.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Melissa Crow, senior supervising attorney at the Southern Poverty Law Center, says the memorandum is another in a string of the Trump administration's attacks on vulnerable asylum-seekers. \"We've seen it over and over again, from turning away asylum-seekers at ports of entry, to trying to make those who enter between ports of entry ineligible for asylum, and most recently until now, sending asylum-seekers back to Mexico to wait for their court hearings,\" she says. \"The Trump administration has had their hand slapped numerous times by the courts, and I suspect that this time will be no different.\"\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>It's too soon to tell exactly how the proposed measures would play out for asylum-seekers, because the actual regulations have yet to be written by the attorney general and DHS. But Crow says one of her concerns is that the proposed changes could prevent migrants from applying for different types of relief for which they may be eligible.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>When migrants come to the U.S. border and express a desire to apply for asylum, the first step is often the credible-fear interview, in which they must convince an asylum officer that they have a credible fear of returning home. \u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>If they make it over that hurdle, they can apply for any type of relief that's available to them. For instance, people who were trafficked can apply for a \u003ca href=\"https://www.uscis.gov/humanitarian/victims-human-trafficking-other-crimes\">T visa\u003c/a>, and young people who have been abused, abandoned or neglected by a parent may apply for \u003ca href=\"https://www.uscis.gov/green-card/sij\">special immigrant juvenile status\u003c/a>.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>But with the proposed changes, Crow worries people may only be referred for asylum or withholding of removal proceedings — categories that have different standards and which aren't available to some people, including those who have previously been deported and then unlawfully reentered the country.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>As it released Trump's memo, the White House included \u003ca href=\"https://www.whitehouse.gov/briefings-statements/president-donald-j-trump-working-stop-abuse-asylum-system-address-root-causes-border-crisis/\">a sheet of statistics and arguments\u003c/a> to bolster its case. \"Our immigration system has reached a breaking point as we continue to see an overwhelming surge of migrants, with more than 100,000 arriving at our border in March alone,\" it states. \"As a result of loopholes in United States immigration law, migrants claiming fear are often released into communities across the United States, where they often remain indefinitely.\"\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The memo also proposes regulations to require nearly all asylum applications to be decided in immigration court within 180 days of filing, not including appeals. U.S. immigration courts are notoriously backlogged, and it's not clear whether the proposed changes would also provide additional resources as they aim to speed up the courts' work.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Whatever the final language of the proposed regulations, they are likely to be challenged in court.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Crow says she sees an irony in the administration's latest moves to crack down on asylum-seekers, noting that \u003ca href=\"https://www.npr.org/2019/04/02/709089322/u-s-decision-to-cut-central-american-aid-could-worsen-migrant-crisis-experts-say\">the U.S. has recently cut off aid to El Salvador, Guatemala, and Honduras\u003c/a> — a move that's unlikely to improve the quality of life in countries that are among the biggest producers of people seeking asylum.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>And when people in those countries seek a better life, Crow says, \"we're making it even more difficult for them to reach safety once they flee.\"\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cem>NPR White House correspondent Tamara Keith contributed to this report.\u003c/em> \u003c/p>\n\u003cdiv class=\"fullattribution\">Copyright 2019 NPR. To see more, visit https://www.npr.org.\u003cimg src=\"https://www.google-analytics.com/__utm.gif?utmac=UA-5828686-4&utmdt=Trump+Calls+For+Asylum-Seekers+To+Pay+Fees%2C+Proposing+New+Restrictions&utme=8(APIKey)9(MDAxOTAwOTE4MDEyMTkxMDAzNjczZDljZA004)\">\u003c/div>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003c/div>\u003c/p>",
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"content": "\u003cp>Thousands of children and young adults living in often dangerous conditions in Central America may be able to join their parents in the U.S. after the federal government agreed to a court settlement in San Francisco this month.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Their immigration cases had been stalled since 2017, when the Trump administration phased out an Obama-era program that offered humanitarian protections to minors in El Salvador, Guatemala and Honduras. But now immigration officials are moving to reopen the cases of approximately 2,700 people covered in the lawsuit, \u003ca href=\"https://refugeerights.org/wp-content/uploads/2018/06/Class-Action-Complaint.pdf\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">S.A. v. Trump\u003c/a>.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\"We are thrilled. This is a huge victory,” said Kate Meyer, an attorney with the International Refugee Assistance Project who represents the 13 plaintiffs in the U.S. and Central America who filed suit last summer. “Our clients finally have some hope that they'll be able to reunite.\"\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[pullquote size=\"medium\" align=”right” citation=\"Santos, the Bay Area woman leading the lawsuit\"]'I felt cold, like all our dreams were thrown in the trash.'[/pullquote]\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The Trump administration ended the Central American Minors Parole Program as part of a broader effort to restrict the number of refugees admitted.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Thousands of young people who were on the verge of travel to the United States were suddenly turned down. Immigration officials had conditionally approved them for \u003ca href=\"https://www.americanimmigrationcouncil.org/research/use-parole-under-immigration-law\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">parole\u003c/a>, pending routine medical exams and background checks, said Meyer.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Only cases with urgent humanitarian or public benefit reasons are granted parole, which allows noncitizens to temporarily stay in the U.S., and apply for work authorization and asylum.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The 53-year-old Bay Area woman leading the lawsuit, Santos, said government officials instructed her to pay for her daughter and young grandson’s plane tickets. (KQED is not using Santos’ last name because her relatives fear gang members in El Salvador).\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Her daughter had already packed her bags, Santos added, when they learned they couldn’t legally move to the U.S. after all.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“I felt cold, like all our dreams were thrown in the trash,” said Santos, who lives in the East Bay and has worked for the same hair salon for 12 years. “It was very difficult. We cried a lot.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The government later refunded Santos nearly $3,000 for the tickets, she said, but not additional expenses in her two-year application process.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[ad fullwidth]\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Under the \u003ca href=\"https://www.uscis.gov/CAM\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">CAM program\u003c/a>, vulnerable people under age 21 whose parents are lawfully residing in the U.S. could be processed in their home countries for refugee or parole status.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The Obama administration started the CAM program in 2014, as one way to try to reduce a huge surge of minors fleeing Central America on their own trying to reach relatives in this country.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The policy aimed “to provide a safe, legal, and orderly alternative to the dangerous journey that some children are currently undertaking to the United States,” according to a 2014 U.S. Department of State \u003ca href=\"https://2009-2017.state.gov/j/prm/releases/factsheets/2014/234067.htm\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">fact sheet\u003c/a>.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“I think it was a great program in theory. On the ground, though, it operated very slowly and the numbers that ended up qualifying were quite small,” said Sarah Pierce, an attorney with the Migration Policy Institute in Washington, D.C.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>More than 13,000 people applied, but only about 3,000 cases were admitted to the U.S. through the program, according to the legal complaint filed on behalf of Santos and the other plaintiffs.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[aside label=\"Migration and Family Separation\" tag=\"family-separation\"]\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Still, Pierce said the shutdown of this program — for people to be processed in their home countries — contributes to the wave of Central American families and unaccompanied minors arriving at the U.S. border to ask for humanitarian protections.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“If anyone in El Salvador, Guatemala, Honduras wants to apply for asylum in the United States, they need to travel to the U.S. border,” she said.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Top U.S. Customs and Border Protection officials say the agency’s capacity is overwhelmed by the number of children in family units or traveling on their own in their custody, which they call “an unprecedented \u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/news/11739297/border-delays-grow-as-customs-officers-shift-to-handle-surge-in-migrant-families\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">humanitarian and security crisis\u003c/a>.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Last month, Border Patrol agents apprehended nearly 9,000 unaccompanied minors and 53,000 migrants in family groups — more than any month since the government began tracking children traveling with parents.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>While people living in Central America have other avenues to pursue humanitarian protections in the U.S., such as through the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees, experts say that, practically speaking, those rarely succeed.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>After Santos and other parents sued to restart their children’s applications, immigration officials told the federal court last week that the earliest they could issue travel documents is late October. They will need to collect medical examinations and background checks in each case that is still eligible, and reopen facilities and contracts that had been shut down.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>A spokeswoman with U.S. Immigration and Citizenship Services declined to comment on the settlement or plans to implement it.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>But plaintiff attorney Daniel Asimow said the new government timeline is not fast enough for the 2,700 minors covered in the lawsuit who are still facing danger in Central America.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“The government does face some challenges, and we are sympathetic to that,” said Asimow, whose law firm is based in San Francisco. “However, we think there are some steps that potentially could be expedited.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>For example, Asimow said only five doctors in El Salvador were approved to conduct the necessary medical exams.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“So we are going to talk to the government to see if there’s any way to get more doctors on contract to speed up those steps,” he said.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Santos, sitting on a couch in her immaculate apartment, said she feels hopeful once again that she and her family will reunite in the Bay Area.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“I have faith that this time, we’ll be able to be together soon,” she said.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The Trump administration ended the Central American Minors Parole Program as part of a broader effort to restrict the number of refugees admitted.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Thousands of young people who were on the verge of travel to the United States were suddenly turned down. Immigration officials had conditionally approved them for \u003ca href=\"https://www.americanimmigrationcouncil.org/research/use-parole-under-immigration-law\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">parole\u003c/a>, pending routine medical exams and background checks, said Meyer.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Only cases with urgent humanitarian or public benefit reasons are granted parole, which allows noncitizens to temporarily stay in the U.S., and apply for work authorization and asylum.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The 53-year-old Bay Area woman leading the lawsuit, Santos, said government officials instructed her to pay for her daughter and young grandson’s plane tickets. (KQED is not using Santos’ last name because her relatives fear gang members in El Salvador).\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Her daughter had already packed her bags, Santos added, when they learned they couldn’t legally move to the U.S. after all.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“I felt cold, like all our dreams were thrown in the trash,” said Santos, who lives in the East Bay and has worked for the same hair salon for 12 years. “It was very difficult. We cried a lot.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The government later refunded Santos nearly $3,000 for the tickets, she said, but not additional expenses in her two-year application process.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Still, Pierce said the shutdown of this program — for people to be processed in their home countries — contributes to the wave of Central American families and unaccompanied minors arriving at the U.S. border to ask for humanitarian protections.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“If anyone in El Salvador, Guatemala, Honduras wants to apply for asylum in the United States, they need to travel to the U.S. border,” she said.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Top U.S. Customs and Border Protection officials say the agency’s capacity is overwhelmed by the number of children in family units or traveling on their own in their custody, which they call “an unprecedented \u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/news/11739297/border-delays-grow-as-customs-officers-shift-to-handle-surge-in-migrant-families\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">humanitarian and security crisis\u003c/a>.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Last month, Border Patrol agents apprehended nearly 9,000 unaccompanied minors and 53,000 migrants in family groups — more than any month since the government began tracking children traveling with parents.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>While people living in Central America have other avenues to pursue humanitarian protections in the U.S., such as through the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees, experts say that, practically speaking, those rarely succeed.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>After Santos and other parents sued to restart their children’s applications, immigration officials told the federal court last week that the earliest they could issue travel documents is late October. They will need to collect medical examinations and background checks in each case that is still eligible, and reopen facilities and contracts that had been shut down.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>A spokeswoman with U.S. Immigration and Citizenship Services declined to comment on the settlement or plans to implement it.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>But plaintiff attorney Daniel Asimow said the new government timeline is not fast enough for the 2,700 minors covered in the lawsuit who are still facing danger in Central America.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“The government does face some challenges, and we are sympathetic to that,” said Asimow, whose law firm is based in San Francisco. “However, we think there are some steps that potentially could be expedited.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>For example, Asimow said only five doctors in El Salvador were approved to conduct the necessary medical exams.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“So we are going to talk to the government to see if there’s any way to get more doctors on contract to speed up those steps,” he said.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Santos, sitting on a couch in her immaculate apartment, said she feels hopeful once again that she and her family will reunite in the Bay Area.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“I have faith that this time, we’ll be able to be together soon,” she said.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003c/div>\u003c/p>",
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},
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},
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"info": "KQED’s statewide radio news program providing daily coverage of issues, trends and public policy decisions.",
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"officialWebsiteLink": "/californiareport",
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"order": 8
},
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},
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"order": 10
},
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"google": "https://podcasts.google.com/feed/aHR0cHM6Ly9mZWVkcy5tZWdhcGhvbmUuZm0vS1FJTkM3NjkwNjk1OTAz",
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"meta": {
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"source": "City Arts & Lectures"
},
"link": "https://www.cityarts.net",
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},
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"order": 1
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"info": "\u003cem>Code Switch\u003c/em>, which listeners will hear in the first part of the hour, has fearless and much-needed conversations about race. Hosted by journalists of color, the show tackles the subject of race head-on, exploring how it impacts every part of society — from politics and pop culture to history, sports and more.\u003cbr />\u003cbr />\u003cem>Life Kit\u003c/em>, which will be in the second part of the hour, guides you through spaces and feelings no one prepares you for — from finances to mental health, from workplace microaggressions to imposter syndrome, from relationships to parenting. The show features experts with real world experience and shares their knowledge. Because everyone needs a little help being human.\u003cbr />\u003cbr />\u003ca href=\"https://www.npr.org/podcasts/510312/codeswitch\">\u003cem>Code Switch\u003c/em> offical site and podcast\u003c/a>\u003cbr />\u003ca href=\"https://www.npr.org/lifekit\">\u003cem>Life Kit\u003c/em> offical site and podcast\u003c/a>\u003cbr />",
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"id": "commonwealth-club",
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"info": "The Commonwealth Club of California is the nation's oldest and largest public affairs forum. As a non-partisan forum, The Club brings to the public airwaves diverse viewpoints on important topics. The Club's weekly radio broadcast - the oldest in the U.S., dating back to 1924 - is carried across the nation on public radio stations and is now podcasting. Our website archive features audio of our recent programs, as well as selected speeches from our long and distinguished history. This podcast feed is usually updated twice a week and is always un-edited.",
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"source": "Commonwealth Club of California"
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"google": "https://podcasts.google.com/feed/aHR0cDovL3d3dy5jb21tb253ZWFsdGhjbHViLm9yZy9hdWRpby9wb2RjYXN0L3dlZWtseS54bWw",
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"tagline": "The conversation starts here",
"info": "KQED’s live call-in program discussing local, state, national and international issues, as well as in-depth interviews.",
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"imageSrc": "https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/2024/04/Forum-Podcast-Tile-703x703-1.jpg",
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"source": "kqed",
"order": 9
},
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"google": "https://podcasts.google.com/feed/aHR0cHM6Ly9mZWVkcy5tZWdhcGhvbmUuZm0vS1FJTkM5NTU3MzgxNjMz",
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},
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"officialWebsiteLink": "http://freakonomics.com/",
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"meta": {
"site": "radio",
"source": "WNYC"
},
"link": "/radio/program/freakonomics-radio",
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"apple": "https://itunes.apple.com/us/podcast/freakonomics-radio/id354668519",
"tuneIn": "https://tunein.com/podcasts/WNYC-Podcasts/Freakonomics-Radio-p272293/",
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},
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"id": "fresh-air",
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"apple": "https://itunes.apple.com/WebObjects/MZStore.woa/wa/viewPodcast?s=143441&mt=2&id=214089682&at=11l79Y&ct=nprdirectory",
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"info": "A live production of NPR and WBUR Boston, in collaboration with stations across the country, Here & Now reflects the fluid world of news as it's happening in the middle of the day, with timely, in-depth news, interviews and conversation. Hosted by Robin Young, Jeremy Hobson and Tonya Mosley.",
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},
"hidden-brain": {
"id": "hidden-brain",
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"info": "Shankar Vedantam uses science and storytelling to reveal the unconscious patterns that drive human behavior, shape our choices and direct our relationships.",
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"airtime": "SUN 7pm-8pm",
"meta": {
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"source": "NPR"
},
"link": "/radio/program/hidden-brain",
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"how-i-built-this": {
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"title": "How I Built This with Guy Raz",
"info": "Guy Raz dives into the stories behind some of the world's best known companies. How I Built This weaves a narrative journey about innovators, entrepreneurs and idealists—and the movements they built.",
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"airtime": "SUN 7:30pm-8pm",
"meta": {
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"source": "npr"
},
"link": "/radio/program/how-i-built-this",
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"apple": "https://itunes.apple.com/us/podcast/how-i-built-this-with-guy-raz/id1150510297?mt=2",
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"hyphenacion": {
"id": "hyphenacion",
"title": "Hyphenación",
"tagline": "Where conversation and cultura meet",
"info": "What kind of no sabo word is Hyphenación? For us, it’s about living within a hyphenation. Like being a third-gen Mexican-American from the Texas border now living that Bay Area Chicano life. Like Xorje! Each week we bring together a couple of hyphenated Latinos to talk all about personal life choices: family, careers, relationships, belonging … everything is on the table. ",
"imageSrc": "https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/03/Hyphenacion_FinalAssets_PodcastTile.png",
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"order": 15
},
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},
"jerrybrown": {
"id": "jerrybrown",
"title": "The Political Mind of Jerry Brown",
"tagline": "Lessons from a lifetime in politics",
"info": "The Political Mind of Jerry Brown brings listeners the wisdom of the former Governor, Mayor, and presidential candidate. Scott Shafer interviewed Brown for more than 40 hours, covering the former governor's life and half-century in the political game – and Brown has some lessons he'd like to share. ",
"imageSrc": "https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/2024/04/The-Political-Mind-of-Jerry-Brown-Podcast-Tile-703x703-1.jpg",
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"order": 18
},
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}
},
"latino-usa": {
"id": "latino-usa",
"title": "Latino USA",
"airtime": "MON 1am-2am, SUN 6pm-7pm",
"info": "Latino USA, the radio journal of news and culture, is the only national, English-language radio program produced from a Latino perspective.",
"imageSrc": "https://ww2.kqed.org/radio/wp-content/uploads/sites/50/2018/04/latinoUsa.jpg",
"officialWebsiteLink": "http://latinousa.org/",
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"source": "npr"
},
"link": "/radio/program/latino-usa",
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"apple": "https://itunes.apple.com/WebObjects/MZStore.woa/wa/viewPodcast?s=143441&mt=2&id=79681317&at=11l79Y&ct=nprdirectory",
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"rss": "https://feeds.npr.org/510016/podcast.xml"
}
},
"marketplace": {
"id": "marketplace",
"title": "Marketplace",
"info": "Our flagship program, helmed by Kai Ryssdal, examines what the day in money delivered, through stories, conversations, newsworthy numbers and more. Updated Monday through Friday at about 3:30 p.m. PT.",
"airtime": "MON-FRI 4pm-4:30pm, MON-WED 6:30pm-7pm",
"imageSrc": "https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/2024/04/Marketplace-Podcast-Tile-360x360-1.jpg",
"officialWebsiteLink": "https://www.marketplace.org/",
"meta": {
"site": "news",
"source": "American Public Media"
},
"link": "/radio/program/marketplace",
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},
"masters-of-scale": {
"id": "masters-of-scale",
"title": "Masters of Scale",
"info": "Masters of Scale is an original podcast in which LinkedIn co-founder and Greylock Partner Reid Hoffman sets out to describe and prove theories that explain how great entrepreneurs take their companies from zero to a gazillion in ingenious fashion.",
"airtime": "Every other Wednesday June 12 through October 16 at 8pm (repeats Thursdays at 2am)",
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"officialWebsiteLink": "https://mastersofscale.com/",
"meta": {
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"source": "WaitWhat"
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"link": "/radio/program/masters-of-scale",
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"rss": "https://rss.art19.com/masters-of-scale"
}
},
"mindshift": {
"id": "mindshift",
"title": "MindShift",
"tagline": "A podcast about the future of learning and how we raise our kids",
"info": "The MindShift podcast explores the innovations in education that are shaping how kids learn. Hosts Ki Sung and Katrina Schwartz introduce listeners to educators, researchers, parents and students who are developing effective ways to improve how kids learn. We cover topics like how fed-up administrators are developing surprising tactics to deal with classroom disruptions; how listening to podcasts are helping kids develop reading skills; the consequences of overparenting; and why interdisciplinary learning can engage students on all ends of the traditional achievement spectrum. This podcast is part of the MindShift education site, a division of KQED News. KQED is an NPR/PBS member station based in San Francisco. You can also visit the MindShift website for episodes and supplemental blog posts or tweet us \u003ca href=\"https://twitter.com/MindShiftKQED\">@MindShiftKQED\u003c/a> or visit us at \u003ca href=\"/mindshift\">MindShift.KQED.org\u003c/a>",
"imageSrc": "https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/2024/04/Mindshift-Podcast-Tile-703x703-1.jpg",
"imageAlt": "KQED MindShift: How We Will Learn",
"officialWebsiteLink": "/mindshift/",
"meta": {
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"source": "kqed",
"order": 12
},
"link": "/podcasts/mindshift",
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"google": "https://podcasts.google.com/feed/aHR0cHM6Ly9mZWVkcy5tZWdhcGhvbmUuZm0vS1FJTkM1NzY0NjAwNDI5",
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}
},
"morning-edition": {
"id": "morning-edition",
"title": "Morning Edition",
"info": "\u003cem>Morning Edition\u003c/em> takes listeners around the country and the world with multi-faceted stories and commentaries every weekday. Hosts Steve Inskeep, David Greene and Rachel Martin bring you the latest breaking news and features to prepare you for the day.",
"airtime": "MON-FRI 3am-9am",
"imageSrc": "https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/2024/04/Morning-Edition-Podcast-Tile-360x360-1.jpg",
"officialWebsiteLink": "https://www.npr.org/programs/morning-edition/",
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"link": "/radio/program/morning-edition"
},
"onourwatch": {
"id": "onourwatch",
"title": "On Our Watch",
"tagline": "Deeply-reported investigative journalism",
"info": "For decades, the process for how police police themselves has been inconsistent – if not opaque. In some states, like California, these proceedings were completely hidden. After a new police transparency law unsealed scores of internal affairs files, our reporters set out to examine these cases and the shadow world of police discipline. On Our Watch brings listeners into the rooms where officers are questioned and witnesses are interrogated to find out who this system is really protecting. Is it the officers, or the public they've sworn to serve?",
"imageSrc": "https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/2024/04/On-Our-Watch-Podcast-Tile-703x703-1.jpg",
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"officialWebsiteLink": "/podcasts/onourwatch",
"meta": {
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"source": "kqed",
"order": 11
},
"link": "/podcasts/onourwatch",
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"google": "https://podcasts.google.com/feed/aHR0cHM6Ly9mZWVkcy5ucHIub3JnLzUxMDM2MC9wb2RjYXN0LnhtbD9zYz1nb29nbGVwb2RjYXN0cw",
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"rss": "https://feeds.npr.org/510360/podcast.xml"
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},
"on-the-media": {
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