Luna's Story (English)

Remembering that saddest day of my life doesn’t fit into my brain because it is a day that I never want to repeat. When I arrived at the border with my daughter, my little one, 10 years old, fleeing terrible violence in my country, defending our own lives when some terrible men detained us, discriminating against us for being immigrants. That was when our great pain began. After spending four hours behind bars in the back of a truck like a criminal, they transferred us to the “ice box” where they confiscated all of our belongings. We felt that we were dying of the very very strong cold from the air conditioning and again were discriminated against by other officials for having fled our country. All of the officials saw us as imposters, criminals, worthless people and they denigrated us as people. They see us as less than them for not being from here. 72 hours after arriving to that place without being able to sit down, sleep, or eat, they were still taking photos of us and fingerprints to put in the system they said. After two more hours to satisfy our hunger they came out with sandwiches which they say were very good. A frozen piece of ham that looked purple, with a bad smell like it was going bad, and tap water, most of the children sleeping on the floor and the rest in their parents’ arms. We spent 58 hours like this sleeping and eating on the floor and covering ourselves with plastic that didn’t get rid of the cold. Then they made us stand in line for 3 hours to transfer us to another area known as the “dog pound” or “pen”. They put only the women in a van and in others the men and the children and from then on I didn’t hear anything from my son. The ICE officials transferred me with the great lie that my son would be where we were going. I excitedly entered looking for my son but he was not there. There were only women in cages, in another area men and in another, children. There I saw me child about 20 meters from me behind a metallic fabric. My son was crying to be with me and I was also crying. A voice yelled at me “Ma’am, get away from there!” Then they gave me another plastic blanket and a thin mat to spend 8 days there without knowing why they didn’t reunite me with my son, eating only apples and water, asking each official for my child and them not telling me anything. An ICE official told me they were taking me to a shelter with my son. When I asked for my son they told me he was already there waiting for me. The trip took 4 hours and they took me to a county jail for men and women, then after 4 days to another prison for women in Laredo, without hearing anything from my son and I cried an ocean of tears. They transferred me again to Port Isabel. After 62 days of not knowing anything of my son I saw him and they gave him back to me and then transferred us to Dilley together. We have been here for 30 days and we continue to suffer without being able to enjoy our freedom or be with our family.

Fight for us, thank you to CARA!