The United States deports a former Salvadoran child soldier to Mexico, despite his years of work for the FBI. He rebuilds his life in Tijuana.
Tired of the civil war in El Salvador, Houston moved to the US when he was fifteen. He joined gangs and served time in prison but was given a chance to use these experiences to work for the United States Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI). Nevertheless, a charge for domestic violence sent him back to El Salvador and eventually landed him in Mexico, where he has established a new life.
I met Houston after frequenting a pupuseria, where his wife, Laura, was the cook. One afternoon, after I shared the purpose of my visit to Tijuana, Laura urged me to wait until Houston picked her up from the pupuseria. With marveled eyes and a sense of admiration in her voice, Laura confided that she knew bits and pieces of her husband’s history, but not all of it. Despite a strong pitch, nothing could have prepared me for the Hollywood-esque story that was Houston’s life.
Once Houston arrived, Laura introduced us and set up a table in an alley right outside the pupuseria. A few feet away, children kicked a ball back and forth as they played street soccer. A mariachi band was playing with gusto a few businesses down.
“I was born in El Salvador, and I remember the war breaking out when I was six years old. There were lifeless bodies splayed out in the streets every day. I grew up in the midst of violence, traumatized.” Houston paused to show me the goosebumps on his arms as he began sharing his story. “The army would chase us after school, trying to force us to join the war. As children, we grew up fearing we would be killed by the army or killed by the guerillas. We slept out in the hills, hiding from people who wanted to murder my father for being a commander in the Salvadoran army. I was able to avoid the military until I was fourteen, but had grown tired of running away from the ‘recruiters.’ Before my fifteenth birthday, I found myself fed up with the military and asked my father to send me to the United States, following the trail of many other Salvadorans who had left and been received with open arms up north.
“I arrived in Laredo, Texas, in 1990, after my dad paid a coyote to take me. Back then, it cost around $2,000. Once I arrived at the border, I turned myself in to the authorities. I remember a marine asked me if I was from El Salvador and followed up his question by saying, ‘Welcome to the United States.’ I took my shirt off, and the marine noticed I had a skull on my back that is representative of the Salvadoran military. He asked me if I was in the military, and after I responded affirmatively, the US gave me my papers, and I became a refugee.”
Houston went on to share many aspects of his life in the US, such as finally understanding the complexity of what was happening back home and being recruited by the FBI.
“I kept getting in trouble, so one day the FBI recruited me to work as an undercover gang member for them. They promised to protect me, so I worked for them for nearly seven years. Despite my years of service, they took away my refugee status and deported me [to El Salvador] in 1999 for an alleged domestic violence dispute, for which I had proven myself innocent. The US keeps you around as long as you are useful, and then they kick you out on your butt.
“Back in El Salvador, the gangs were after me. They kept attempting to recruit me, but I was done. I didn’t want that life anymore. Instead, I grew closer to God and began to help youth who were in gangs. Finding God was the best thing that happened to me. I remained in El Salvador for two years, working in whatever came up, including my father’s cattle ranch.
“Then I went back to the US by myself, but this time I had a different mindset. I wasn’t using drugs. I wasn’t involved in gangs. I didn’t drink. My only vice was smoking cigarettes. I received many threats from gangs who said I had to join them or else. My response was always, ‘Do what you will.’ I loved myself and wasn’t willing to get back into gangs. Instead, I worked in the same thing I work in now: construction, remodeling, painting, and electric work. I took on jobs in different states and eventually went to Miami and learned to build traditional Miami homes. Back then, I made $150 a day. That was 20 years ago, around 2001. After a short time, I met a man who hired me as his contractor and gave me a team of people to do the same work. He gave me my own truck and everything! I made good money, but I always spent my money on luxury cars and nice clothing. Sometimes, as humans, we can be really dumb. There were days when I would make $3,000 or $4,000 in a day. My life was all about luxury, though. I would send money to my daughter in El Salvador and spend the rest. My motto was, ‘When I die, I won’t take anything with me, so I might as well spend it all now.’
“Then, in 2011, I was walking down the street when a cop stopped me. He entered my information in his system and said I wasn’t allowed to be in the country because I had a warrant for a domestic violence charge from 1997. I went to jail in 1997 for that domestic violence dispute and even proved my innocence. It was the same dispute that had gotten me deported in the first place. In any case, the cop in Miami took me in, and I went back to jail. I didn’t realize what they were doing to me was illegal. The cop was also trying to pin me for stealing $450, which he never found on me. In court, I asked, ‘Where are the $450 I stole if the police report states I only had $60 in my pocket? Where is the testimony of the person I allegedly stole that money from?’ After three court appearances, someone from the FBI showed up with my entire file on hand. He shook my hand and said, ‘You worked for us many years ago. We can’t deport you because you helped us a lot. You will go to immigration court, but you will not be deported.’
“After I was in detention for a month and a half, a marshal showed up and took me to a federal prison. This time, they wanted to use everything I did while undercover against me. You see, they would hire me and ask me to go undercover to a prison to get information from someone. I did that various times for them. The file the marshal had on me did not state anywhere that I was undercover, working for the FBI. Instead, it claimed in all those instances I was just another gang member. For my work with the FBI, I was sentenced to fifteen years in prison.
“I wanted to kill myself. I would cry and cry. I came to hate the United States. My attorney told me to plead guilty and settle for seven years in prison. She assured me that if I fought my case in court, I would get the full fifteen years. I did as she said. I ended up serving four years and then went back into a detention center the day I was released from prison.
“I didn’t want to go back to El Salvador because if I returned, I would be killed. I sent letters requesting asylum in Germany, Italy, Spain, France, the UK, and Mexico. I never received a response because my letters were never sent by the immigration officials. Eventually, I preferred going back to El Salvador to staying in the Immigration and Customs Enforcement detention center. On February 17, 2015, I was deported. That same day, a member of my family, who had joined a gang, tried to kill me. He knew I had worked undercover for the police in El Salvador as well. I narrowly escaped after suffering a beating, and I went into hiding for fifteen days. Once I had recovered from the beating, I fled to Mexico.
“In Mexico, I applied for asylum. As I did, authorities contacted the local Salvadoran consul, who claimed I was a gang member and should be sent back. I demanded to speak with a human rights organization, but the consul kept lying to me, saying he was contacting them, but the line was always busy. So, I went to a migrant shelter for a few days. There, I helped the man in charge. The consul wanted this man to kick me out of the shelter, but the man did not let him. The man from the migrant shelter was able to put me in touch with a human rights organization on the first try. That’s when we confirmed the consul had never really made the call. The next day, a human rights worker came to interview me, along with a journalist. At the end of the interview, the human rights worker said, ‘Welcome to Mexico. I will make sure you are able to stay here.’ He then sent me to COMAR [Mexican Commission for Refugee Assistance] to file my case.
“After my asylum interview with COMAR, I left for Oaxaca with their authorization. I knew I couldn’t stay in Chiapas because there are too many gangs there and it’s too dangerous. I learned of a migrant shelter in Oaxaca run by a priest, and the human rights organization arranged for my transportation. The migrant shelter is in Ixtepec, right where La Bestia runs through, which is why it is always filled with migrants.” Houston tells me of his time in the shelter, the friends he made, and a nun who disliked him and wanted him to leave. “As I fought my asylum case, I worked in the shelter. I would do all the things I knew how to do: electric work, water pump maintenance, trash pick-up, etc. I didn’t get paid for this work. I simply did it to earn my keep. After a month and a half of living in the shelter, I received my refugee residence card and cried.
“I stayed at the shelter a while longer. I was put in charge of the minors’ ward and taught them technical skills such as electrical work and painting. I was then asked by the priest in charge to head another chapter of the shelter in Oaxaca, which would be exclusively for minors. I accepted and was sent along with five other people to get the chapter started. Although I was in charge, I still received no compensation and, therefore, decided to move on from the shelter.
“I left for Guanajuato to work with some of the priest’s family members, polishing cars. They wanted to exploit me. This time I was offered payment, but it was too little for the work I was asked to do. I worked from 8:00 am to 12:00 am, seven days a week for 800 MEX ($39.74) a week. I refused to be exploited and left for Tijuana instead.
“I arrived in Tijuana with 5 MEX ($0.25) in my pocket. I slept on the floor of a former resident of the shelter in Oaxaca for over a month with only a suitcase to my name. Two days after my arrival, I was working at a manufacturing plant in Otay, getting paid 1,200 MEX ($59.62) a week through a bank deposit. I was restless and wanted more, so I only worked there for two weeks. I knew I could make money here, and I wanted to improve myself. In a month, I had saved enough to rent my own room and found a better job, working for a man in construction, where I was making 1,800 MEX ($89.42) per week in cash. I met him because he came to fix a pipe where I lived. I asked what his profession was, and he said he worked for a company that did all sorts of construction and repair work. I asked if he could get me a job, and he did. Once they saw my work, they rewarded me with bonuses of 2,000–3,000 MEX ($99.36–$149.09). I also worked a reasonable schedule, so I stayed at that job for three months.
“After that, I was offered a management position to oversee thirteen restaurants in Zona Rio [a wealthy commercial area in Tijuana]. I found that opportunity by looking for maintenance jobs on the internet. In the US, a maintenance job involves electric or painting. Here, maintenance is janitorial work. I learned about this difference after an interview at a restaurant. My interviewer convinced me to try waiting tables for a week, and depending on how it went, I could be offered a management position. I accepted and worked for the restaurant chain for nearly eleven months. I only made 1,800 MEX ($89.42) per week, but the work was much lighter, and I could earn double if I worked overtime. My problem there was other Mexican employees. They didn’t think I should be their supervisor because I was a foreigner. The owners of the restaurants, Israelis, would explain to them that nationality had nothing to do with it. This was a matter of experience and skill, and I was in charge. After a while, I got fed up with the racism and looked for another job.
“I found my next job in a newspaper ad: painting. I was offered 2,200 MEX ($109.30) a week, a fortune for me in Mexico! After that, I found another job doing the same thing where I was paid 2,800 MEX ($139.10). I was there for ten months. I then found out they were looking for people to work at the airport on a remodeling project. I applied and got the job as a painter. After six months, some electricians stole an expensive cable so they called the federal police to search all the workers. They didn’t find the person that stole the cable but fired five of us since we had some nails and screws we’d picked off the ground in our bags. All five of us were Central Americans. The next day, they found the true culprit, so my boss called me to apologize and offered me the job again. I accepted the apology but told him I would never work for his company again.
“Close to my house in Otay was a mall under construction, so I applied as a painter and was asked to start immediately. I began to work without knowing how much I would be paid. The man in charge came up to me the first day and said he liked my work and offered to pay me 4,000 MEX ($198.72) a week. I worked there for six months and then we finished the job. My boss referred me to a friend and since then, I have been working with him. It’s been almost one year, and he pays me 3,000–3,500 MEX ($149.04–$173.88) a week. I have threatened to leave a few times for the same reason: discrimination against migrants. There are Mexican colleagues who don’t like that I know more than they do, so they want to humiliate me. I have been on the verge of fighting them. My boss has had to send me to work on my own as a solution.
“We face discrimination everywhere. I once had to sue [a Mexican bank] for discrimination. I had an account with them back when I worked at the manufacturing plant. I went to withdraw money one day, and they requested my ID, so I gave them my residency card. They then requested my passport, so I told them I didn’t have one. When they saw my tattoos, they said I was a criminal and belonged to MS13. I showed them my CURP (my insurance card) and I told them they couldn’t treat people like this. They said they didn’t care, and next time I showed up, I wouldn’t get any money. So, I called an attorney friend I have who works for the government. She requested I send her everything that happened in writing and told me she would send the CONAPRED [National Council to Prevent Discrimination] to represent me. My lawyer asked if I wanted to sue for money, but I said no. All I wanted was for them to learn that all humans on this earth are the same. I don’t want another migrant to be humiliated the way I was. So, they all had to take a six-month-long anti-discrimination course and a training on how to treat migrants.
“Since then, I don’t have a bank account. I also can’t afford one, so I keep my money under my mattress,” Houston laughed. “It’s hard. My wife just began to work. She doesn’t have any documents, and that makes finding work very difficult. She has suffered a lot. She was offered a job, working twelve hours a day for a meager 100 MEX ($4.97). Another offer was at a nightclub, but I told her I would rather her not work than be humiliated. She spent almost a year without work. It’s impossible to save when you have very little coming in. What money we have left over, after paying rent and bills, goes to our kids back in El Salvador and to my mother. We send around $100 a month through Elektra, but they always request my passport, which I have now. Before, I had to pay someone to send the money on my behalf.
“I can’t say my life in Mexico has been bad. I don’t drink anymore. I’ve had good jobs and good bosses. I have suffered discrimination, but that hasn’t slowed me down. I have a bed, a refrigerator, a microwave, and internet. I arrived with just a backpack. I had nothing! It wasn’t easy. Sometimes I didn’t have anything to eat. I would buy an avocado and cheese, and that was my meal. Now I’m rich in Mexico! I have life, health, a bed, and a roof over my head. I am well. But many migrants don’t have that. You have migrants from all over the world in Tijuana, but many of us don’t come with the intention of bettering ourselves. Here, in the northern part of the city, you can find Salvadorans, Hondurans, and Guatemalans stealing or doing drugs. Why come to do that? Sure, I used to be like that, but I left that life behind.
“I am now in the process of becoming a Mexican citizen. I would like to go back to El Salvador, but there is no life for me there. The most I would make for what I do is $10 a day. Even though I have all my papers in order, I can’t go back to El Salvador as it would mean putting my life in danger. And my mom, who is like Wonder Woman to me, is dying. She doesn’t want to come here because she’s 83 and in a wheelchair. I know I won’t ever see my mom again, and all I can do is ask God for strength on the day she passes. I have been the black sheep among her sons, yet I’m the one she loves the most. She’s given her life for me.” His voice breaks as tears stream down his face. We take a moment as I hand him a tissue.
“Although I am a refugee in Mexico, I have never received any benefit or money for my status. UNHCR has done absolutely nothing to help me, nor has COMAR. That hasn’t stopped me, though. I continue to work hard and will push forward despite the odds.”
Houston and I have stayed in touch since our interview. He recently fell off a ladder at work and broke his back. Doctors said he needed a surgery that costs $500, but he could not come up with the money and was out of work for a month. Salvadoran gangs were able to track him down in Mexico and he is now wary of his safety. He called UNHCR to express his fears, and they have yet to do anything. His wife is out of work again after dislocating her ankle, and they are both scrambling to make ends meet. Somehow, despite the hardships he’s enduring, he remains positive and hopeful he’ll overcome this and any other tribulation thrown his way.
Note: All names are pseudonyms.