Last April, Ginger, who’s now 17, enrolled as a 10th-grader at a Detroit high school. When she started, she didn’t know anyone and didn’t speak any English. But after a few days, some kids who spoke Spanish befriended her, and things have been getting better since.
Not long after Ginger arrived in Detroit, her mother’s boyfriend heard about Neal Brand, a Detroit lawyer who helps undocumented migrants navigate the complicated legal process of applying for asylum in the U.S. He agreed to take Ginger’s case.
In November, President Trump announced new rules restricting the ability of many migrants to apply for asylum. He said only migrants who enter the U.S. through official crossing points would be allowed to apply. This new rule would make it much harder for migrants like Ginger who crossed illegally to gain asylum. However, current immigration law allows migrants to file asylum claims regardless of how they entered the country, so the new rule is being challenged in federal court.
Ginger knows that some Americans are hostile toward immigrants like her who’ve come to the U.S. illegally. She wants people to know that she came here “because of the injustice in my country, the insecurity that we live in. The children here have everything. They don’t have fear. They don’t have worries, and there’s justice, and they’re taken care of.”
Ginger’s dream is to study hard and become a psychologist someday. To do that, she’ll need some kind of legal status in the U.S. Brand says her application for asylum has been filed, but the government hasn’t ruled on it. A preliminary court hearing is scheduled for this month, but Brand says he expects it could take three years to resolve her case. While her claim is being considered, Ginger can’t be deported. But if she’s denied asylum, she’ll likely be sent back to Honduras.
Despite the uncertainties she still faces, and knowing now how long and hard the journey from Honduras is, Ginger says she would still do it all again.
It was worth all the risks, she says, “because I know that I’m safe here. Here, my only worry is that they’ll send me back to my country.”