BRATTLEBORO-Facing increasing harassment for their relationship and fearing for their lives and their family's safety, a Colombian family fled their homeland.
It took months of travel on a journey where they faced considerable dangers, but this spring the four family members finally found refuge in southern Vermont, where they are rebuilding their lives as they seek permanent asylum.
The couple, Oliva and Andrea, are in their mid-30s; their daughter, age 6, is just starting school. Andrea's mother, Claudia, is in her early 50s.
They all lived together in a home in one of Colombia's largest cities. Oliva and Andrea quietly made a good living as truck drivers, moving goods all over the country.
All that changed about three years ago, when Claudia and Oliva, riding together on a motorcycle, got in an accident near their home. Another vehicle had backed into them.
Oliva called Andrea, who was nearby, and the police. Andrea came down to the site of the accident to check on her family.
The police officers began to ask Andrea why she was there, why she was interfering in the incident, and how she was related to the women in the accident.
When they found out that Claudia was her mother and Oliva was her partner, things took a sinister turn.
The police began using derogatory terms toward the women, They turned their attention to Andrea, eventually handcuffing her and putting her in a police car. She was beaten in the car, then brought to a police station, where the mistreatment continued.
Violence from the police
Colombia banned discrimination based on sexual orientation in 2011 and legalized marriage equality in 2016.
But legalization did not mean the end of prejudice and mistreatment of the country's LGBTQ citizens, and the women said that in Colombia, a gay or lesbian couple cannot be seen holding hands or kissing.
"Many people disappear in Colombia," Oliva said. "They say that being gay is accepted, but that's a lie."
"The police did not like that two women were partners," Andrea said. "Gay marriage may be legal, but there is mucho machismo in Colombia."
"Before they put Andrea in the car," Oliva said, "she warned us to run. They had her in handcuffs. Before that, when she tried to use her phone to record what was happening, they smashed the phone on the ground."
The police took photographs of all the women's documents, so they knew their names and where they lived. They held Andrea, physically abusing her for over an hour.
When Andrea was let go, she was determined to report what the police had done to her. Later that week, she went to the police station to track down the names of the officers.
She got no information at the police station. There was no record of the incident, and the police denied that what had happened to Andrea had even taken place.
"I was really upset," Andrea said. "There were no numbers, no names, no information on what police officers were involved. The police had my ID and all the information about me, but I had no information on them."
The harassment begins
Soon after, the family began to experience harassment, starting with someone throwing rocks through their windows while they were in their home with two visiting baby nephews.
"It's not uncommon for the police to hire someone to harass and threaten people," Andrea explained. "It's a problem in Colombia."
That event was the start of a "bunch of bad things," Andrea said.
There were more beatings, more broken windows, people yelling outside their home or on the street for them to "get out."
The women said that they would hear someone shout at them from the street a Colombian idiom that roughly translates as "Don't look for what isn't lost."
"It was a way of saying to us, 'Stop investigating this incident - it won't go well for you,'" Oliva explained. "We felt that somebody the police had hired said that to us."
More escalation
The women explained that the traffic police in Colombia "are in total control and can stop any driver at any time for no reason at all."
Compounding matters, as a trailer truck driver, Andrea moved all over the country, at times in very remote areas.
"Other drivers and contractors, they can make it very difficult for a woman," Andrea said. "It might be legal, but being LGBTQ is going against tradition."
Oliva explained that she drove trucks for a company that operated within the law, which meant that all her trips were well documented. That documentation was available to the police.
"The police knew where I was," she said. "It was all documented by the company. So I could run into problems with the police wherever I was."
Andrea said they continued to try to investigate the harassment against them, but they ran into a wall.
Without any concrete evidence of the police harassment - photos, videos, names, or numbers - "you get nowhere," Andrea said.
"The police protect each other," she said. "They cover, they hide. And from the little we did manage to find out, the officers involved included someone of high rank."
Then matters escalated once again. Someone fired two shots into their house, almost hitting their daughter. Oliva and Andrea were pushed off their motorcycle, breaking Andrea's clavicle and requiring surgery.
"I felt I was dying then," Andrea said.
"That's when we decided to leave the country," Andrea added.
Journey to the border
The family had been saving money to take a vacation trip together. They decided to use the money to get them to a new home. They even mortgaged their home to get extra funds.
"We had been saving a long time," Andrea said. "So we had enough to leave. We realized we could not escape from the harassment. It kept coming back."
Under the guise of taking a vacation, the family got tourist visas and flew to Mexico, first to Cancún and then to Monterrey, which is still about 150 miles from the U.S. border.
From Monterrey, they took a bus north. But at every police stop, the bus company demanded more money, which they used to pay off the police so the passengers could continue north.
At one stop, they were told they could purchase tickets that would take them to the border. But at 5,000 pesos each ($270), it was more money than they had.
Not being able to afford the tickets, they were locked up in a room for three days with no food or showers. They were told they would have to pay to be released.
More migrants began to arrive, as did armed men.
Feeling that things were getting desperate, the group decided to make a run for it.
"'Let's run together,' we said," Andrea recalls. "'They can't shoot all of us. Some of us will make it.'"
About 30 people ran and made it into the countryside. They walked for hours in the desert. The men separated and went on ahead, leaving the women and children to make it on their own as best they could.
"We found a convenience store and got bread, tuna fish, and water," Andrea said. "We were walking along the highway. If we saw a car, at first we'd hide, and if it was a regular car, we'd try to get a ride."
After 17 hours, they got a ride from an old man in a pickup. Besides the three women and the child, they had another woman from Colombia with them and a woman from Cuba who was eight months pregnant.
It was January, and they tried to stay warm riding in the bed of the truck in the freezing temperatures.
"We would see a barricade in the road," Claudia said, "and wondered if it was the police or the cartel. In this case, it was the police."
With their tourist visas, they were allowed through.
After they were left off by the truck, they continued walking. A police car passed them, then stopped and turned around.
"They felt sorry for our daughter and for the pregnant woman," Andrea said.
They were scared.
"The police are often in cahoots with the cartel, and they had their faces covered. So was this the police or the cartel?
They started to cry.
"We asked them, 'Please let us keep walking. Please don't hurt my mother or child.'"
The women were surprised when the officer told her, "Calm down. We're going to help you. We're not all bad."
The police officers took them to a refuge that was connected to a church in Río Bravo.
One of the people who ran the refuge was a "really good person," Andrea said. But another there gave them a really hard time.
"He didn't like homosexuals," she said. "He told us, 'Women are supposed to please men.'"
Refuge in Rio Bravo
While they initially intended to go to the border and seek asylum, Andrea said, they were counseled at the refuge not to do so as it would be "very dangerous." They were told that they would most likely be turned back at the border if they tried.
Instead, they stayed for two months at the refuge, often with as many as 100 other migrants. They slept on pieces of cardboard on the floor.
The children got three meals a day, and the adults got two - rice and beans. The refuge was not always safe, and the women said some abuse did take place there.
They applied to enter the U.S. on humanitarian grounds and were granted a "credible fear" interview, but they had to wait another three weeks for an appointment.
They arrived for an interview with another 30 asylum seekers. They were asked for their documents, were fingerprinted, and were seen by a doctor. During the interview, they were asked why they applied, and they presented their story of harassment and death threats.
"We were given something to eat while we waited," said Andrea. "The whole process was done in a morning. We were granted the right to enter the U.S."
The family will present their case for permanent asylum to a court in November.
Taking root in Vermont
Andrea, Oliva, and their daughter came into the U.S. at Texas, then they went to Los Angeles, where a friend took them in.
During a month there, they connected with Mariposas Sin Fronteras, an organization created in 2011 to help LGBTQ people with their immigration rights and to end systemic violence against them while they are navigating the immigration system.
Mariposas Sin Fronteras connected the women with the Community Asylum Seekers Project (CASP) in Brattleboro, a nonprofit group started in Windham County in 2016 to support and aid legal asylum seekers with critical services, basic needs, and community.
CASP has aided some 25 asylum seekers so far, connecting them with housing, legal aid, and community support.
The family came to Vermont at the end of April, staying with a local family until CASP was able to find a small apartment for the four of them. They are eligible for work permits and they have applied.
In the meantime, they are getting some assistance from the wider community.
Andrea says they know they're "really taking a chance telling our story like this."
"But we want people to know what we've experienced to come here seeking asylum," she said, "and who we are as people, as women."
Editor's note: Owing to the current political and cultural issues in both Colombia and the United States regarding LGBTQ people, asylum seekers, and immigrants, The Commons has not used full names or referencing specific locations in this piece out of respect for the safety of the sources who shared their story. For more information about CASP, visit caspvt.org.
This News item by Robert F. Smith was written for The Commons.