The Independent Uganda: You get the Truth we Pay the Price
– ‘You will get robbed’ –
Gerbin Asmar Hernandez, 26, is from Santa Barbara, a town in Honduras near the border with Guatemala.
Fed up with high crime back home, Hernandez made the journey to the United States through Mexico with his 10-year-old daughter, Annarut, leaving his wife and a son behind.
Hernandez said that a few years ago, about a week before Christmas, he was robbed of the $300 he had made while working for a month on a coffee plantation.
“I was just one hour away from my town and I got robbed,” he said.
“You can’t carry around money because you will get robbed.”
Hernandez and his daughter flew to Washington state, where they will await a court date — and for a judge to decide whether they can remain in the United States.
In the meantime, he is wearing an ankle bracelet to track his movements.
– Sleeping in the street –
Also from Honduras is Fanny Mencia, 26, who made the voyage from her hometown of Siguatepeque to the border with her son Anderson Rodriguez, age seven.
“We suffered along the way, sleeping in the street,” Mencia said of the trip through Mexico.
Mencia, who is six months pregnant, said she left behind the father of her unborn child, whose meager wages did not cover the food bill for everyone.
She and her son are heading for Tennessee, where her sister lives.
