Santos

Santos* knew that sports could keep kids safe and out of trouble. He says, “I recognized that it was the best way to encourage moving oneself away from bad company and vices. Consequently, I involved myself in making soccer teams of boys and girls of different ages, for which I bought sports equipment through my own efforts.”

Santos remembers that he was always satisfied to see young people move away from the gangs and dangerous situations when they started playing on his soccer teams.

Santos’s efforts led to a job with his municipal mayor’s office,  which  gave  him the opportunity to reach more young people through a youth soccer program that recruited them away from gangs. “The youth just needed an opportunity, and I believed in giving it to them through the practice of soccer.”

But in 2016, gang members began to threaten his family and demanded he stop the program. “What I was doing was correct by my obligations to the community, but I did not think of the risk in which I put my children and family through my job to prevent violence through sports.”

“The threats [I] received day after day, [and] due to the degree of danger that the gangs represented, my life and my family no longer lived in peace. After the gangs killed my co-worker, Rosalidia, and then another friend and coworker, Luis, I decided to flee the country to be able to stay alive for my son, even if it was in another country.”

Just a few months ago, Santos was granted asylum, and now  he  wants  to  focus  on  his family and continue helping youth  in the community. Santos continually gives thanks for the help he has received. He says, “All things through the hands of God are possible.”

Michelle Swearingen, Santos’s legal representative, says of him:  “Working  with Santos and his teenage son, Andres*, has been a source of joy for me this year. Santos and Andres are both incredibly kind, thoughtful, and bright.”

To help Santos, a natural-born storyteller, understand the parts of his story that the judge needed to hear, RILA’s Legal Director, Jason Braun, explained that Santos would have to once again go back into the worst days of his life to review each event in detail—and so he did.

“When the judge announced his decision,” remembers Michelle, “I watched Santos’s face. A normally animated man, he sat stoic, looking stunned. But once the court proceedings were concluded, his face turned towards his son, and they came together in a a hard-won moment of joy. They had both worked so hard for so long, and finally, the door was opened for them. Santos is a man of deep faith, speaking blessing over me at every meeting and in every communication. Now we are able to petition for his wife and other son to join him here. We don’t always get the answer that we want, but when we do, it is like heaven breaking in, making wrong things right and setting people free, making all things new.”

*Names have been changed.