Never Losing Hope
By Anne Jang, RILA Supervising Attorney
As election season ramps up this year, immigration policy is understandably an important topic of debate and discussion. However, I’ve been dismayed recently to hear some politicians broadly characterize people crossing the southern border as violent criminals and prisoners, sent intentionally by their home countries to “invade” the United States. This is simply untrue. The reality is that the reasons driving people to leave their homes for a new life here are much more complicated. And many who arrive at the border are asylum seekers like our clients – individuals and families who have been victims of crime, not perpetrators, and are genuinely fleeing persecution.
One of those asylum seekers was Lucia*, who was only fifteen when a notorious and powerful gang leader twice her age came up to her at a community dance, eyeing her like prey. Later, the gang leader stalked her online and then forced Lucia, through chilling death threats against her and her family, to come out to meet him nightly so that he could rape her. After a year of unrelenting sexual violence, Lucia fled her home country for Mexico on the promise of a waitressing job at a restaurant. But the “restaurant” turned out to be a brothel, and Lucia had essentially been trafficked there by the gang. Desperate to leave, she accepted the help of an older man who took her away from the brothel, but also took advantage of her. When Lucia arrived at the U.S. border a few months later, she crossed alone as an unaccompanied child – 17 years old and four months pregnant.
Lucia’s troubles didn’t end once she reached the U.S. She had a difficult childbirth, and her newborn daughter suffered health complications. Her older sister paid an attorney to represent Lucia, but the attorney did not communicate with Lucia or keep her informed about her case. Lucia also became embroiled in an abusive relationship and unknowingly missed her immigration court hearing. Well-meaning friends wrongly told her there was nothing she could do about her immigration status now, that the only option was to live in hiding, lest ICE officers take her baby away and deport her back to her home country.
By the time Lucia got in touch with RILA in February 2019, she was running out of hope. RILA staff discovered that, because Lucia had missed her prior hearing, an immigration judge had ordered her removed and closed her case. Our first step was to file a motion to reopen her immigration case so that she could apply for asylum – my inaugural assignment as a freshly minted member of RILA’s team. The motion worked, as the court agreed Lucia had missed her hearing due to exceptional circumstances and that she deserved the chance to pursue relief. Nearly five years later, I was thrilled to be sitting next to Lucia when an immigration judge granted her asylum and wished her well for the future. Lucia was overjoyed, grateful, and in a state of total disbelief that her case, after all she’d been through, was finally over.
Now, seeing Lucia full of hope for herself and her daughters, determined to give them a childhood of love and safety that she never had, I’m so thankful that RILA was able to keep fighting for her over the years and see her case through to the end. There are many others like Lucia, clients whose asylum journeys have been long, complex, or rife with challenges. But we at RILA are committed to standing with them as they seek justice for their claims, holding fast to hope even on dark days and winding paths.
* - Name has been changed to protect client's privacy.