Several kids were kept in a single cell with one toilet and no beds. Once the agents learned he was a minor, they softened and took him to a Customs and Border Patrol detention center, called La Hielera, the “ICE Box.” It was cold, no natural light could enter the building, and the officers would not tell the detainees anything.įood consisted of one sandwich a day. “When you arrive Immigration treats you like you amount to nothing, like you are worthless,” he said. It was the only time in his journey, Marvin reports, that he was mistreated. Yet the officers manhandled him, pushing him roughly into a government SUV. Shivering and terrified, he longed for the comfort of his mom and dad.įinally, Marvin surrendered to US Customs agents, a better prospect than dying alone in the desert. “I thought about my family and why I had decided to travel.” “I became even more afraid because I was lost in the middle of nowhere with no one and nothing,” said Marvin. His clothes, soaked from the river, stuck uncomfortably to his body. He watched quietly as the agents captured and beat Hernandez. Sand crunching beneath his sneakers, Marvin desperately hid from the stark-white flashlight beams of Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) officers. ![]() The darkness in the desert was oppressive. Marvin lagged behind and was separated from the group. ![]() ![]() Marvin recalls staying in hotels and catching trains to cross Mexico without any problems.Īt sunset at the Mexico-Texas border, Marvin and about 12 others crossed the Rio Grande in an inflatable raft, he said, and then traveled by foot for an hour before wading through waist-high water in another river. Marvin’s parents took out a bank loan and made arrangements for him to travel with Hernandez, Marvin’s 19-year-old brother-in-law, and a coyote, or paid smuggler. He set his sights on San Antonio, Texas where a cousin had volunteered support. He begged his parents to let him make the risky journey to the US and they eventually agreed. Unlike many of the tens of thousands of unaccompanied Central American immigrants who have come into the country in recent months, Marvin was not threatened by gangs or escaping an abusive home. His father Carlos Velasco, a community pastor and a musician, shared his son’s love of music and taught him to play several instruments. Marvin said he longed for an education, dreaming of making a life as a musician. The livelihood of 12 relatives depended upon the family business of peddling clothes at the border. Until the morning he departed, Marvin had followed the lead of his four older siblings, leaving school after the sixth grade to help support his family. So left his hometown El Ceibo de La Libertad, Petén, a small, dilapidated city of 30,000 straddling the Guatemala-Mexico border. “I no longer wanted to be in a country where I didn’t have many opportunities, where I believe I will always be the same can never change my situation,” Marvin said. Now, dressed like any American teen, wearing jeans and a grey polo shirt with his school’s emblem, this cherubic boy discusses his life in Guatemala with little emotion and speaks of the sojourn to the US as though it was his daily commute. The instruments come naturally to the church’s newest member, Marvin Velasco, a 14-year-old immigrant who left his family and hometown in Guatemala last year to make a more than 2,000-mile journey to Los Angeles. An electric keyboard, drum set and bass guitar consume the remaining floor space. Religious relics including a menorah and a large Styrofoam crucifix adorn the petite pulpit. The single room is cloaked with faded, previously crimson curtains and lined with eight rows of mismatched folding chairs. Customers buying pot are regaled with Spanish hymns pouring from the small sanctuary of San Juan 3:16. A faded poster on the door displays in Spanish the biblical passage John 3:16: For God so loved the world, that He gave his only begotten son, that whoever believes in him shall not perish but have eternal life.Ībove the front window, a vibrant yellow banner announces nightly services, a stark contrast to the neighboring tattoo parlor, Caribbean seafood market and medical marijuana dispensary. ![]() LOS ANGELES - The tiny storefront church is located in a dingy strip mall in Mid-City Los Angeles.
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