Alicia's Story

Alicia and Noel were teenage sweethearts in Honduras in the early 1980s. By the time they graduated high school, they were already married and living together with their first daughter. Noel was a native-born United States citizen, however, and he decided to move his growing family to California in search of better job opportunities. When Alicia told him that she did not want to leave her home, her family and friends, he threatened to take the baby and warned that Alicia would have to cooperate if she hoped to see her daughter again. Fearful of losing her child, Alicia reluctantly allowed herself to be smuggled into the country in the trunk of Noel’s car. Once they made it across, Noel apologized for having threatened her. He couldn’t stand to lose either Alicia or the baby, he said, threatening her was the only way to keep the family together.

Their relationship continued to deteriorate, however. Noel refused to allow Alicia to take birth control, and she continued to have children. He called her a "wetback." When she told him she wanted to return home to Honduras, he said, "Then go. But you can’t take the children."

The threats and the insults intensified until they ultimately culminated in violence. One day, when Alicia was five-months pregnant with her fifth child, Noel kicked her down the stairs. He walked down the stairs behind her; and as he passed her, he leaned over and said, "You should be ashamed—wallowing on the floor like that. What would the neighbors think?" That night, Noel raped Alicia repeatedly.

When Alicia awoke the next morning, she was hemorrhaging. She was taken to the hospital in an ambulance and delivered an extremely premature son who has suffered from profound mental and physical disabilities ever since his untimely birth.

Noel refused to file a petition with Immigration on behalf of Alicia. When Alicia’s U.S. citizen sister petitioned for her, Noel returned the correspondence, claiming that Alicia did not live at that address. This was his way of perpetuating his control over her—by forcing her into a legally precarious situation so that he could continue to abuse her verbally, physically, and sexually and to threaten her with the loss of her children. Isolated from her sisters and totally dependent on Noel for financial support, Alicia had no escape and nowhere to turn for help.

That is, until she came to Justice for Our Neighbors of South Texas. Today, Alicia has obtained her first authorization to work in the United States and is awaiting her green card, both of which she applied for under the Violence Against Women Act (VAWA). Thanks to JFON’s team of attorneys and volunteers from the church and community—and thanks to the support of congregations and individual donors like you—Alicia has broken a cycle of abuse which repeated for 25 years.

(Names of people and places have been changed to protect privacy)

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