The previous evening Vincent refrained from telling me his story in front of the others. We eventually find a quiet moment alone. He drags heavily on a lit cigarette and then shares his story.
“I’m a man who has suffered since I was a kid. When I was 2 years old, a man raped my mother, then he killed her and threw her body in a river.”
Not long after his mother died, his grandmother died of cancer and his father became a deeply depressed alcoholic. Vincent was raised by his grandfather, and occasionally his father’s sister.
“I was 17 when I fell in love,” Vincent says.
He married a young woman from his neighbourhood and his grandpa gave them a little land on which he built a champita, a small wooden house. He called his first daughter, Andrea, which explained the tattoo on his forearm.
“After her, Juan was born, and then a third child. This is how it happens in poverty. You get a lot of children very quickly.”
At this point, Vincent’s dead mother’s family returned to his life. They questioned him about his future, his plans and his poverty. They suggested he move to the USA and join up with their family members in New York.
“We cannot go alone to the border,” Vincent tells me. “You have to pay a coyote [a people smuggler]. It is a mafia, but it is the best way to avoid getting kidnapped by the cartels. When that happens they treat you very bad. If your family doesn’t give them money, they can kill you.”
”I couldn’t believe that the mother of my children could kill my aunt
Vincent tells me that to enter the US with a coyote costs US$4,000. In 2012, his mother’s family helped arrange his illegal travel through Mexico and into USA.
He found it difficult to settle in America. He found it a closed society, at times racist, and he couldn’t learn English, although he tried. He missed his family, especially his baby who had only been just born.
“I wasn’t used to being alone. I used to cry every night.”
He found work in construction and was able to send money home to his family. But after eighteen months, his wife fell in love with another man and stopped caring for their children. She started taking drugs and associating with unsavoury folk, and she became an addict. When Vincent found about the affair, he arranged for his aunt in Honduras to take care of the children while he continued to send money home. When his wife stopped receiving money she became jealous and spiteful. One day, she tried to take the children from Vincent’s aunt, but his aunt sent her away.
“She went back to my aunt’s house that night with two men. They shot and killed my aunt. Someone contacted me to tell me what had happened. I couldn’t believe it, I fell into a depression. I couldn’t believe that the mother of my children could kill my aunt. She threatened my family and myself. My plans were shattered.”
In 2016, after almost five years in the United States, Vincent returned home to see his grandpa before he died. The mother of his children had been sentenced to 20 years prison, but his children were with the family of his ex-wife.
“The family didn’t tell the children what had happened, but at some point they will learn the truth.”
In his hometown of Santa Cruz de Yojoa, there are mountains and waterfalls, rivers and lakes. But there were no jobs and there was a lot of violence. Like his father before him, Vincent became depressed. He sold the house he was building, started drinking, and spent all of his money.
He tried to re-enter the United States in 2017, with neither a caravan nor a coyote. When he arrived at the town of Reynosa, Mexico, he was caught by immigration without papers and he returned to Honduras.
On another attempt, he managed to enter the US at Reynosa with the help of a coyote. He jumped the border wall and crossed the Rio Grande in a little inflatable boat. The coyote hid the group of 54 people in a warehouse for five days, but immigration officers found them and arrested them all. Vincent was detained for 3 weeks and then deported back to Honduras.
He moved to San Pedro Sula, which for a time was considered one of the most violent cities in the world, where he met Eva and they had Madeline. But Vincent was aware that their lives were in danger.
“My ex-wife has threatened to kill me. She has said that she is going to send people to do so. That is why I decided to come here.”
The challenge for Vincent is the cost of coyotes. A special trip designed for those with children costs around US$7-10,000. That’s why Vincent thinks the caravan is a good opportunity to reach the US safely.
“The caravan is protected. If we arrive together, we are safe. We want to ask the American government to take us as refugees. We want a dialogue.”
Even though it is their legal right to seek asylum in the United States, it is unclear whether that will even be possible. President Trump has indicated the troops being sent to the border will block the migrants from requesting protection.
The most tragic part of Vincent’s story is that it is not unique. This migrant caravan is full of stories just like his.
