“We are from Guatemala, we are on our way to the United States, my friend, myself and my 5-year-old daughter. I am 24 years old and a widow. My husband was killed when my little girl was only 2 years old because he worked for the Guatemalan police. After that, I went to live with my mother and when she died I worked as a maid in the house of some elderly Spanish gentlemen, where my daughter and I lived, until their death, recently. Not having a place to live or a job, my friend told me “let’s go to the United States”, I was afraid because we have no papers and no money. But she told me she would support me.
When we arrived at the southern border of Mexico, a person offered us help in exchange for money and told us that he would protect us, I only had 90 dollars and I told him: it is all I have to give you, for my daughter and for me. My friend paid him more money for her. He gave us a cell phone number to contact him if we encountered any problems. We crossed the river, in those boats they build with tires, putting them on the bottom, so they float. We got to the Mexican side and everything seemed fine, until some people grabbed us and took us to a house where they locked us up for a whole day. There were many people like us, who crossed the border. They never gave us food or water. I told my friend: contact the man who took us across the river and tell him that they are holding us. She did so and he replied that he would see what was going on to find a solution.
They sat us down in rows and started killing people, blowing their heads off. I laid my daughter’s head on my leg and covered her with a red sweater and told her: “count to 30 my love”, when I finished “count to 20” and so on. When there was one person left for me to pass, a person told us: “you 3, get up and come with me”. He led us to another room. Then they put us in a van, in which there were many migrants, and took us to another house. After several hours they put 12 people in a small car, and in the trunk they put two men. The driver of the car drove for about half an hour in a terrible heat and then stopped and told us: “get out”, opened the trunk, moved the men and shouted: “these are already dead, they won’t move, I’m going to have to throw them out”. He left. He left us outside a town, we did not know where we were, we walked, until we met people and they took us to this shelter.”