被迫返回洪都拉斯的寻求庇护者说他们再也不会冒险去美国了

28岁的卡门·马丁内斯是两个孩子的母亲，她在里维拉·埃尔南德斯长大，里维拉是圣佩德罗苏拉最臭名昭著的帮派暴力和犯罪街区之一。

如果她想邀请邻居以外的朋友甚至家庭成员来她家，她必须先得到黑帮头目的许可；如果她想创业，她也需要他们的祝福，一旦开始赚钱，她可能会支付高额勒索费；如果她被告知要出城，她还有大约24个小时的时间生命就危在旦夕。

像圣佩德罗苏拉的大多数社区一样，里维拉·埃尔南德斯“由帮派管理”，该地区至少被七个对立的团体所划分，包括“马拉·萨尔瓦楚查”(MS-13)、“巴里欧18”(在美国被称为第18街帮派)和“巴托斯·洛克斯”(疯子)，他们努力不辜负自己的名声。

马丁内斯告诉记者，“如果你不遵守他们的规则，那么你可能会从一个帮派成员那里得到一些警告。”新闻周刊。如果你仍然不遵守规则，那个帮派成员会给你一个选择，她说:“离开，否则我们会杀了你。”

“我见过不付房租或不付勒索费的人，他们收到匿名警告，告诉他们在24小时内离开房子，”她说。

“我已经学会在这些条件下生存”

这位28岁的母亲大半辈子都和她的伴侣以及他们的两个孩子生活在一起，一个6岁的女孩和一个1岁的男孩，她知道帮派成员的威胁有多真实。

“我哥哥被强行招募……他们让他加入，他们给他纹身，”她说。“然后，他们杀了他。他当时26岁。”

在她哥哥死后的几年里，马丁内斯有了自己的儿子，她担心自己的孩子如果在附近长大，可能会面临同样的命运。

“帮派招募、勒索……即使你尽了最大努力或者确保这些事情不会发生，它们仍然很难阻止，”她说。

这就是为什么在四月，马丁内斯和她的家人决定她应该和她的儿子一起去美国，希望他们能在那里建立一个更光明的未来。

然而，四个月后，马丁内斯坐在圣佩德罗苏拉被遣送回洪都拉斯的儿童接待中心的办公室里，震惊不已。她说，在开始于对“美国梦”的追求很快被分解成“噩梦”之后，她再也不会尝试这样的旅行了

马丁内斯说，“我儿子差点死掉”，而不是为她的孩子找到一个安全的避难所。

我想要更好的生活，但我不会再试一次

当母亲和孩子被墨西哥移民当局逮捕时，他们已经差一点到达美国，前往与得克萨斯州接壤的墨西哥雷诺萨。

“我们在雷诺萨上车时，移民局官员要求我们出示证件。我们没有，所以我们被带到了一个perrera”她说，指的是她和她的儿子被关在一个“狗窝”里的牢房。"

马丁内斯说，后来，她的儿子病得很重，出现了剧烈咳嗽和流感症状。“他的眼睛肿了，还咳嗽和感冒了。他不吃也不喝。”

马丁内斯和她的儿子被拘留了两周，他们被迫睡在冰冷的硬地板上，这也于事无补，“直到我恳求移民局的人给我找个小床垫，他们做到了。”

回顾这段经历，马丁内斯说:“这是一场噩梦。我想要更好的生活，但我不会再试一次。”

“每个离开的人都想去美国。我被描绘成一个非常美丽的美国梦，但没有人告诉我，我必须和一个孩子跳过栅栏……没有人告诉我，如果移民抓住我，我将不得不睡在地板上挨饿。他们只谈到了美国梦……而不是你必须经历的一切。”

马丁内斯没有计划再次尝试艰难的美国之旅，她说她希望通过开一家卖鸡肉的商店来“设法生存”。如果她的商店真的开始赚钱，她可能会面临“勒索费”——在圣佩德罗苏拉做生意的代价。

“我们没有多少钱，我也没有其他选择。我已经学会在这些条件下生存，”她说。

对我来说，最重要的是给我的儿子动手术。

就在圣佩德罗苏拉城外20多英里的一个叫纳科的农村小镇，两个孩子的五个月大的母亲鲁宾·帕西塔·孔特雷拉斯说，她也学会了用她仅有的一点点来生存。

25岁的孔特雷拉斯和她的家人与丈夫和两个孩子共用一间临时小卧室，住在当地社区捐赠的棚屋里，他们已经学会了在没有水、电和基本卫生设施的情况下生活。

与此同时，一面散乱的美国国旗作为这个家庭的唯一门口，不断提醒人们另一扇门已经关闭。

像马丁内斯一样，孔特雷拉斯说，她也放弃了美国梦的想法，在她自己痛苦的经历之后，她试图去美国为她生病的儿子寻求治疗。

孔特雷拉斯说，8岁的安东尼部分失明，“只能看见阴影”，有特殊需求。然而，他从未接受过医生的正式评估，所以她不知道他病情的名称或原因。

尽管这位25岁的母亲说，当她决定带着儿子离开洪都拉斯时，她曾希望到达美国，但最终，“我不在乎我去了哪里。对我来说，最重要的是给我的儿子动手术。”

然而，一旦她和她的儿子到达墨西哥，他们害怕继续推进到美国边境，而是在街上生活了几个月，担心他们的安全。

“我没有尝试是因为我害怕……尤其是对我的孩子来说，因为有绑架事件，而且太冒险了，”她说。

然而，住在墨西哥街头的帐篷里，孔特雷拉斯说她也担心她和安东尼的生命。“我们没有地方住……我也找不到工作。我害怕我们可能会被袭击……我听说过街上发生的事情。”

当然，孔特雷拉斯的担心远非毫无根据，每年有成千上万的移民和寻求庇护者穿越墨西哥，成为犯罪集团的猎物，这些犯罪集团以绑架为生，并扣留他们索要赎金，而那些家庭无力支付赎金的人面临被杀害的威胁。有些人遭受酷刑或虐待，无论其家人是否能够支付释放费用，而妇女和女孩特别容易遭到强奸和性侵犯。

在圣佩德罗苏拉被遣送回洪都拉斯的儿童接待中心工作的心理学家艾琳·巴奎丹说，她听到了孩子们和父母在寻求庇护的旅途中留下的创伤。

孩子们回到洪都拉斯时焦虑、疲惫、饥饿和生病。一些人表现出抑郁的迹象，而另一些人似乎震惊地陷入沉默。

“一些经历过非常困难的孩子说他们目睹了暴力和绑架，”她说新闻周刊坐在办公室的办公桌后面。“大多数被绑架的孩子似乎没有受到虐待，但他们是父母，是的。父母有时会被强奸，孩子们必须看到这种情况发生。”

根据大赦美国据信，每年有多达20，000名移民成为绑架的牺牲品，而墨西哥国家人权委员会估计，犯罪团伙每年从绑架中获利高达5，000万美元。

其家庭可能无力支付犯罪集团释放费用的移民面临被杀害的风险，而其他人可能面临酷刑和虐待。

大赦国际估计每10名移民妇女和女孩中就有多达6名在从中美洲到墨西哥的旅途中经历过性暴力。

孔特雷拉斯说，虽然她和她的儿子都“幸运”躲过了墨西哥的犯罪团伙，但他们一起旅行的前邻居却没有这么幸运。

“我们在旅途中失散了，我们担心他出了什么事，”孔特雷拉斯说。后来，当家乡的朋友告诉她他在墨西哥塔巴斯科州的维拉赫尔莫萨被杀时，她最担心的事情被证实了。

孔特雷拉斯说，他们在街头生活期间，她的儿子安东尼也“病得很重”，这让她不止一次担心在那些艰难的月份里，他的生命会受到威胁。“他会病得很重……晚上会变冷，还会发烧，”她说。

担心如果他们留在墨西哥会发生什么，孔特雷拉斯最终决定是时候回家，永远放弃美国梦了。

“现在，我只想在这里建立一种生活，”她说。“我想修理这座房子，我想给我的孩子们一个更好的生活。”

这青少年和家庭部(儿童、青年和家庭局)是联合国儿童基金会资助的政府项目，捐赠了孔特雷拉斯和她的家人目前居住的房子，正在尽一切努力帮助她做到这一点。

然而，支持成千上万洪都拉斯人回国的资源很少，这个家庭一直依赖孔特雷拉斯的丈夫(他是一名公共汽车司机和杂工)能够带来的收入，也依赖邻居的善意，他们经常欢迎家人回家使用洗手间和电力。

虽然孔特雷拉斯说她不会再冒险去美国边境，但她确实希望寻求庇护者有“更多的机会，尤其是在美国”。

她说，那些想知道为什么成千上万的洪都拉斯家庭冒着生命危险在美国边境被拒绝的美国人应该知道，“有很多原因促使人们离开。”

Growing up in Rivera Hernández, one of San Pedro Sula's most notorious neighborhoods for gang violence and crime, 28-year-old mother-of-two Carmen Martinez knows the rules for staying alive.

If she wants to invite a friend or even a family member from outside the neighborhood over to her house, she has to get permission from a gang leader first; if she wants to start a business, she needs their blessing for that too and can expect to pay high extortion fees once she starts making money; if she's told to get out of town, she has about 24 hours before her life is at stake.

Like most neighborhoods across San Pedro Sula, Rivera Hernández is "run by gangs," with the district divided by at least seven rival groups, including "Mara Salvatrucha" (MS-13,) "Barrio 18," known in the U.S. as the 18th Street gang, and "Batos Locos" (crazy guys,) who strive to live up to their name.

"If you don't follow their rules, then maybe you'll get a few warnings from a gang member," Martinez, whose real name has been withheld to protect her identity, tells Newsweek. If you still don't obey the rules then that gang member will give you a choice, she says: "Leave or we'll kill you."

"I've seen people who have not paid rent or not paid their extortion fees and they get an anonymous warning telling them to leave the house within 24 hours," she says.

'I've learned to survive these conditions'

The 28-year-old mother, who has spent the majority of her life in the neighborhood living with her partner and their two children, a 6-year-old girl and 1-year-old boy, knows just how real a gang member's threat can be.

"My brother was forcibly recruited… They made him join, they tattooed him," she says. "Then, they killed him. He was 26."

After having a son of her own in the years after her brother's death, Martinez feared that her own child might face a similar fate if he grew up in the neighborhood.

"Gang recruitment, extortion… even if you try your hardest or make sure that these things don't happen, they're still hard to prevent," she says.

That is why, in April, Martinez and her family decided that she should try to make the arduous journey to the United States with her son, in the hope that there they might be able to build a brighter future.

Four months later, however, sitting shell-shocked in the office of San Pedro Sula's reception center for children deported back to Honduras, Martinez says the journey is one she will never try to make again after what began as a pursuit of the "American dream" quickly unraveled into a "nightmare."

Instead of finding a safe haven for her child, "my son almost died," Martinez says.

'I want a better life, but I won't try again'

The mother and child had very nearly reached the U.S., making their way to Reynosa, Mexico, which borders Texas, when they were apprehended by Mexican immigration authorities.

"We were getting on a bus in Reynosa when immigration officers asked us to present papers. We didn't have any so we were taken to a perrera," she says, referring to the holding cell she and her son were held in as a "dog pound."

Then, Martinez says, her son fell seriously ill, developing a harsh cough and symptoms of flu. "His eyes were swollen, he had a cough and the flu. He wouldn't eat and he wouldn't drink."

It also did not help that for the two weeks Martinez and her son were detained, they were forced to sleep on the cold hard floor "until I begged someone from immigration to find me a little mattress and they did."

Looking back on the experience, Martinez says: "It's a nightmare. I want a better life, but I won't try again."

"Everyone who leaves wants to make it to the U.S. I had been painted a very beautiful American dream, but no one ever told me that I would have to jump over fences with a child… No one told me that if immigration catches me, I would have to sleep on the floor and go hungry. They only spoke about the American dream… Not everything you have to go through to get there."

With no plans to try and make the difficult journey to the U.S. again, Martinez says she hopes to "try to survive" by opening up a shop selling chicken. If her shop does start to bring in money, she is likely to face an "extortion fee"—the price of being in business in San Pedro Sula.

"We don't have much money and I don't have any other choice. I've learned to survive these conditions," she says.

'The important thing, for me, was for my son to be operated on...'

Just over 20 miles outside San Pedro Sula, in a rural town called Naco, Lurbin Pasita Contreras, a five-months pregnant mother of two, says she too has learned to survive with what little she has.

Sharing a small makeshift bedroom with her husband and two children in a shack donated by the local community, 25-year-old Contreras and her family have learned to live without access to water, electricity or basic sanitation.

Meanwhile, a sprawling American flag serving as the single doorway in the family's home is a constant reminder of another door Contreras says her family has firmly closed.

Like Martinez, Contreras says she too has given up on the idea of the American dream after her own harrowing experience trying to make it to the U.S. in search of treatment for her sick son.

Partially blind, 8-year-old Antony "only sees shades" and has special needs, Contreras says. However, he has never been formally evaluated by a doctor, so she does not know the name or cause of his condition.

While the 25-year-old mother says she had hoped to reach the U.S. when she decided to leave Honduras with her son, ultimately, "I didn't care where I went. The important thing for me was for my son to be operated on."

Once she and her son arrived in Mexico, however, they were afraid to keep pushing forward to the U.S. border and instead spent months living on the streets, in fear for their safety.

"I didn't try because I was scared… Especially for my child because there were kidnappings and it was too risky," she says.

Living in a tent on the streets in Mexico, however, Contreras says she also feared for her and Antony's lives. "We didn't have anywhere to live…and I couldn't find work. I was scared we might be assaulted… I had heard of things happening in the streets."

Of course, Contreras' fears are far from unfounded, with thousands of migrants and asylum seekers traveling through Mexico each year falling prey to criminal groups who make a living kidnapping and holding them for ransom, while those whose families can't afford to pay face the threat of being killed. Some are tortured or abused regardless of whether their family can pay for their release, while women and girls are particularly vulnerable to rape and sexual assault.

Eileen Baquedan, a psychologist working at San Pedro Sula's reception center for children deported back to Honduras, says she has heard harrowing accounts from children and parents left scarred by their journey in search of refuge.

Children return to Honduras anxious, tired, hungry and sick. Some show signs of depression, while others appear to have been shocked into silence.

"Some kids who have had really difficult experiences say they have witnessed violence and kidnapping," she tells Newsweek, sitting behind her desk in her office. "The majority of children who get kidnapped don't seem to be abused, but they're parents, yes. The parents are sometimes raped and children have to see that happen."

According to Amnesty USA, as many as 20,000 migrants are believed to fall prey to kidnapping each year, while the Mexican National Human Rights Commission estimates that criminal gangs make as much as $50 million each year off of the abductions.

Migrants whose families may not have the means to pay criminal groups for their release face the risk of being killed, while others may face torture and abuse.

Amnesty International estimates that as many as six out of every 10 migrant women and girls experience sexual violence during the journey from Central America to Mexico.

Contreras says that while both she and her son were "lucky" to have evaded criminal groups in Mexico, a former neighbor they had been traveling with was not so fortunate.

"We got separated in the journey and we were worried something had happened to him," Contreras said. Later, her worst fears were confirmed when friends from back home told her he had been killed in Villahermosa in Mexico's Tabasco State.

During their time living on the streets, Contreras said her son, Antony, also grew "very sick," making her fear more than once that his life could be at stake during those difficult months. "He would get very sick… It would get cold at night and he would get a fever," she says.

Afraid of what might happen if they stayed in Mexico, Contreras eventually decided it was time to return home and give up on the American dream for good.

"Now, I just want to try to build a life here," she says. "I want to fix this house and I want to give a better life to my kids."

The Direccion de Niñez, Adolescencia y Familia (Directorate for Children, Youth and Family,) the UNICEF-funded government program that donated the house Contreras and her family are currently living in, is doing what it can to help her do that.

However, resources to support the thousands of Hondurans returning to the country are scant and the family has been relying on what income Contreras' husband, who works as a bus driver and handyman, can bring in, as well as on the kindness of neighbors, who often welcome the family into their homes to use their washrooms and electricity.

While Contreras says she will not risk the journey to the U.S. border again, she does wish there were "more opportunities, especially in the U.S." for asylum seekers.

Americans who wonder why thousands of Honduran families keep risking their lives just to be turned away at the U.S. border should know, she says, "there are a lot of reasons that push someone to leave."