“We are now without a country.”
My friend Sasha and I listen as a beautiful South American* family tells a story entangled with hardship and hope. Renata*, the mother, has just told us that their government is destroying all official documents—such as birth certificates—of their fleeing citizens. She, along with her husband Andrés and two children Mateo and Isabella, escaped violence and persecution, but were not able to apply for protection from the U.S. until after their arrival here.
They are waiting, and we call them “asylum seekers.”
