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This story is part of a bi-weekly series containing edited chapters of Sharon Hollins’ 2021 book “Crossings: Untold Stories of Undocumented Migrants.”
��iolent gang members were
banging on Alejandro’s
door, bullets were fl ying
through the windows, and his
wife and young daughter were
screaming. That’s when Alejandro
made the life-of-death
decision to fl ee El Salvador and
go to America.
“My father was a member of
the police force in El Salvador.
He was one of the good guys and
had just arrested a major gang
member,” Alejandro remembers.
“Arresting such a gang
member is a very brave thing to
do because there will be retaliation.”
That retaliation was now
outside Alejandro’s door, threatening
his family — his wife
Fiona and their baby daughter
Manuela.
It wasn’t the fi rst time,
though, that the thugs had come
for Alejandro. A short while
earlier, a car pulled up next to
him, and a group of goons violently
grabbed him and threw
him into the vehicle.
“I was aware they were taking
me to a very rough area of
town, and I was dragged into a
building. They bound me and
kept on beating me,” he said.
“There were eight of them. I
kept denying who I was, but it
was useless. They knew me and
that they could get to my father
through me. Their plan was to
get my father to come to rescue
me and then once they caught
him, they would kill both of
us.”
Luckily, the next day, after a
night of lying on the hard fl oor
in a pile of his own blood, the
gang members dispersed, leaving
only one man to guard Alejandro.
“He sat there drinking alcohol
and doing drugs. I waited,
and sure enough he fell asleep.
I knew I could get the better of
just one guy even though I was
now in a lot of physical pain,”
Alejandro remembers.
Trained in self-defense, Alejandro
slipped from the robe tying
his hands and overpowered
his guard. He fl ed the house
barefoot, and boarded a bus to
the center of town.
After that horrifying experience,
Alejandro moved his family
to a different part of the city,
thinking they would lay low,
and they’d be safe.
But they were not safe.
“They said they would kill
my daughter, rape my wife and
then take my life. That was common
for these gangs. They will
shoot a whole family as a lesson
to other policemen, to scare the
offi cers away from trying to arrest
them,” Alejandro remembers.
“The gang members were
around the apartment building,
and I could even hear them
on the roof. They were discussing
setting fi re to the house. I
called my local police, but they
were afraid to come,” he says.
The family had one chance
to survive, when the gang members
left momentarily. Alejandro
and his wife grabbed
their daughter and everything
they could carry, and they ran,
leaving nearly everything they
owned behind.
“The next day we managed
to get our passports in order,
buy some clothes and essentials,
and by Dec. 5th we were
on our way to Guatemala. Our
plan had never been to go to the
United States,” he recalls.
They stayed in Guatemala
for a few months in simple accommodations,
but Alejandro
had a hard time fi nding work,
and the family never put down
roots.
Soon, they headed to Mexico,
believing there to be better
opportunities and possibly a
better life for their daughter.
“We decided to stay and try
to work for a while. In Tapachula
my wife Fiona found a job
helping to sell fried chicken in
the market, and I worked in a
garage changing tires in a mechanic’s
shop,” he says.
Alejandro eventually got
more work, as a security guard,
and other odd tasks.
BRONX TIMES REPORTER, O 14 CT. 29-NOV. 4, 2021 BTR
The problems kept arising,
though, as the area was increasingly
infested with crime,
human traffi cking, and drug
cartels.
They decided to head north,
relying on hitchhiking and the
kindness of strangers to get
them there.
“Eventually we arrived in
Mexico City, which is in a beautiful
setting on a high plateau
with mountains as a backdrop.
We loved the city,” Alejandro
recalls.
They spent some time there,
but one day, the family was in
the park for lunch, and they
came across another couple,
who engaged them in conversation.
But Alejandro had a bad
feeling.
“The man was glancing in
another direction, and there I
could see two other men next to
a parked car who seemed to be
watching us. The next minute
they started to move towards
us, and they closed in,” he remembers.
“Within seconds we
were surrounded. One of the
men started trying to pull Manuela
out of my arms.”
Alejandro bagan screaming
for the police, and fi ghting off
the men trying to take Manuela
— and his security background
came in handy, as the men eventually
got spooked, and ran off.
“We had been so close to losing
our little Manuela,” he recalls.
“Children are targeted for
their body parts. It is big business
in Mexico,” Alejandro
says. “She would have been
dead within days, and her organs
would have been sold in
Mexico and abroad for those
who are in need of organ transplants.”
That’s when Alejandro
and his wife decided that they
needed to go further north, to
America.
“We spent three days walking
through the desert. We
had brought a bag with water,
cola, cookies and other snacks,
and we just kept walking in a
northerly direction,” he says.
“Finally, after three days
our water and supplies were
almost gone,” Alejandro remembers.
“I turned on the cell
phone and found to our great
surprise that we were not far
from a road that went to San
Diego.”’
Yet the road was in the middle
of nowhere, and they were
out of supplies and money.
They weren’t sure they would
make it if they tried, and
no one would allow them to
hitchhike in the disheveled
state they were in.
Then, an ICE agent drove
by in a black SUV.
Typically, border-crossers
will scatter from the agents,
but Alejandro, fearing for
his families physical safety,
jumped up and began to wave:
he was turning himself in.
“We were taken to a detention
center. They split us up,
and Fiona and Manuela were
taken to a different area. I was
put in a small cell,” he says. “It
was freezing cold. I was handed
a folded square of paper and
told it was my blanket. I opened
it up and was surprised to fi nd
out it was a sheet of aluminium
foil.”
But it was all worth it, because
they eventually got the
best news they could imagine.
“We were fortunate because
we were eventually told that
we could stay in the United
States,” Alejandro remembers.
Relying on charities, the
trio eventually went to Los
Angeles, and later New York,
where Alejandro’s Aunt allowed
them to stay rent-free
while they got settled.
“Fiona found work almost
immediately as a dishwasher
and managed to work sixty to
seventy hours a week,” Alejandro
says.
They left Manuela with a
lady in the community who
watched several kids for $120
per week, while the parents
headed out to work.
Eventually, they saved up
enough money to rent their
own place, which was small,
but it was theirs. And they
were safe.”
“From our hometown the
trip had taken over fi ve months,
and most of it was pretty stressful.
There was always the danger
of being robbed, killed or
caught by immigration on the
way,” Alejandro says. “If you
have never had your life threatened,
then it might be diffi cult
to understand the lengths to
which you will go to in order to
keep your family safe.”
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