Threatened with death, a gay immigrant seeks protection in the U.S.

Alberto was riding his motorcycle alone on an empty street in Honduras when he unexpectedly heard voices behind him.

He stopped his motorcycle and looked back, watching as four gunmen sprang from their hiding spot among the trees. He recognized their faces. They had threatened him before.

They ambushed Alberto and pointed their weapons at him. They ordered him off his motorcycle, took his phone, and stole his wallet before making him walk to a river.

At the river banks, they forced him to put his hands behind his head, and told him to kneel in the sand. They hit him with their weapons while scolding and belittling him for being gay. They pushed him and knocked him to the ground. Then, they urinated on him while telling him they were about to kill him.

“There goes my life,” he recalled thinking.

Suddenly, a lone passerby startled Alberto’s attackers. The men fired their weapons into the air before running away.

Trembling, Alberto made sure they were gone before he stood up from the sandy river bank. He was filthy, sad and afraid for his life. He decided to flee Honduras. His name has been changed in this story to protect his identity.

Alberto escaped to the United States in September 2018. Five days after crossing the border, he was arrested. He was transported to Stewart Detention Center in Lumpkin, Georgia, where he was detained.

The Southeast Immigrant Freedom Initiative (SIFI) – a project of the SPLC that provides pro bono legal counsel to immigrants facing deportation proceedings in the South – took on Alberto’s case for bond. 

Back in Honduras, Alberto had been living in a country where the gay community is rejected. He could not disclose his sexual orientation to anyone. He was even afraid to tell his own mother. But when he met someone and began a relationship, he no longer wanted to hide who he was.

As an agronomist who held a college degree, Alberto worked at a banana plantation. But when word got out that he was gay, he lost his job. When people from his Honduran community saw him and his partner together, they taunted him with homophobic slurs. Not a day passed that he didn’t endure relentless hate and bigotry.

The hate reached its pinnacle that afternoon when he hopped onto his motorcycle after leaving his friend’s house in April 2018, and was nearly killed by the men with weapons who assaulted him and left him by the river banks.

An unexpected shock

Alberto had visited the U.S. before. In 2012, he took part in an internship at Louisiana State University in Baton Rouge, Louisiana, earning credits toward his undergraduate degree in agriculture from Honduras’ Universidad Zamorano. He entered with a J-1 visa that allowed him to visit the U.S. as an exchange student.

When he returned to the United States in September 2018, however, he did not travel through an official port of entry. Instead, someone helped him cross the Mexican border into McAllen, Texas. He prayed for the best, knowing he deserved a better life.

“I came for asylum, and it’s a right I have,” he said. “There are people who come here out of necessity, like me.” 

Shortly after his arrival in Texas, Alberto was riding as a passenger in a car, until a tire went flat. As he and the driver got out to inspect the damage, U.S. Customs and Border Patrol (CBP) officers stopped them. The driver fled, but CBP officers placed Alberto in handcuffs and took him to a hielera – a temporary holding facility known for its unbearably cold temperatures.

Inside the hielera, Alberto waited alone for nine days. For over a week, he sat inside of the icy facility, unsure of what would come next.

He was eventually transported to Tallahatchie, Mississippi, where he had his Credible Fear Interview (CFI) – the interview that determines whether an immigrant’s fear of home is genuine. He passed his CFI, but was placed into removal proceedings at Stewart in October 2018, where he went to immigration court.

Alberto would be detained for three months.

‘We are American!’

The conditions at Stewart were horrible. The food served at the immigrant prison tasted like plastic, so Alberto was required to work for pennies on the hour to afford something edible from the commissary.

Forcing detained immigrants to work for virtually nothing isn’t rare with private prison operators.

In early 2018, the SPLC filed a lawsuit against CoreCivic, Inc. – the company that owns and operates Stewart – for placing detained immigrants who refused to work into solitary confinement, and the loss of access to basic necessities, a situation that violates federal anti-trafficking laws.

But Alberto worked. He worked every day.

When he was finished for the day and needed a shower, the guards didn’t care. If he was lucky enough to have access to the shower, the water’s temperature was either scalding or freezing. Sometimes, the shower head would only spit out air.

When he woke up in the morning, he was allowed a short “recess” outside. Alberto walked the perimeter of the yard, his thoughts consumed by what the future held. Would he be deported? He didn’t know. But he knew that returning to Honduras would mean certain death.

“I am very scared,” he said in Spanish during an interview he gave at Stewart in December 2018. “It’s difficult to denounce your country, but I had to. I denounced everything. It wasn’t easy. I’m afraid to go home.”

At Stewart, Alberto said he felt like a prisoner. The guards were often cruel, and they yelled at him and the other detainees for speaking Spanish.

“Shut up!” they would scream. “We are American!”

Alberto needed out – immediately. But he needed an attorney.

Unfortunately, for many detained immigrants, including Alberto, attorney fees are simply too costly, leaving them with few options to fight their case. Because Alberto’s offense of crossing the border between ports of entry was civil in nature, he wasn’t afforded an attorney at the government’s expense.

However, SIFI attorney Matt Boles was working to secure his bond. According to research, having an attorney represent Alberto made him 10-and-a-half times more likely to succeed in his case.

In December 2018, after being locked up for three months, Alberto finally saw the day when a judge granted him bond. He was released in January, after the Freedom Fund paid his bond. 

As he left the immigrant prison, his tears were replaced with a smile.

“I am so happy to be released from detention,” he said. “I was so alone at Stewart, and now I’m happy. I am so grateful for SIFI’s help to get me released.”

He plans to fight for asylum while living in Carrollton, Georgia.

“We are glad that Alberto has been released from detention so that he can be free in the United States while his asylum case is pending,” Boles said. “It is unfortunate that he had to be in detention for several months, including over the holidays, until he was able to be released. He will now have a better chance to have an attorney for his asylum case and will have a better chance at ultimately being able to remain in the U.S.”

In the meantime, Alberto hopes to work and advance his studies in agronomy. He’s grateful to no longer be held prisoner at Stewart.

“I’m free now, thanks to God,” he said.