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migrant caravan, caravan migrante, mother, woman, mother's day, asylum seeker

Sayra Mavet Mejia Meza, 5 (left) and Cheyli Nallely Mejia Meza, 5 (right) play with their newly acquired bicycle on April 4, 2019 in suburban D.C.

For the past four months, the two twins together with their mother Maria Lidia Meza Castro, 40 (not in the picture) and their three siblings have been living in a house in the suburbs of Washington, D.C. while her attorneys are gathering all the documentation necessary for her asylum plea after she was granted entrance in the U.S. on December 18, 2019 at the Otay Mesa port of entry with the help of non profit Families Belong Together, Democratic congressman Jimmy Gonzalez and Congresswoman Nanette D. Barragán.

Castro is from San Pedro Sula, Honduras. She is a mother of nine, five of whom she brought on the long, arduous journey to the U.S. as one of the 5,000 plus Central American migrants traveling with the caravan in October 2018. Three others she left in Honduras, and another, the eldest, had already been living in the U.S., but had just been deported back to Honduras at the beginning of February 2019.

Castro fled because her 13-year-old daughter had started to be threatened by the Maras, the local Mafia, who wanted her to sell drugs and start engaging in prostitution. Castro abusive husband had left three years prior and she’d been raising her children alone in Honduras since.

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Sayra Mavet Mejia Meza, 5 (left) and Cheyli Nallely Mejia Meza, 5 (right) play with their newly acquired bicycle on April 4, 2019 in suburban D.C.<br /> <br /> For the past four months, the two twins together with their mother Maria Lidia Meza Castro, 40 (not in the picture) and their three siblings have been living in a house in the suburbs of Washington, D.C. while her attorneys are gathering all the documentation necessary for her asylum plea after she was granted entrance in the U.S. on December 18, 2019 at the Otay Mesa port of entry with the help of non profit Families Belong Together, Democratic congressman Jimmy Gonzalez and Congresswoman Nanette D. Barragán.<br /> <br /> Castro is from San Pedro Sula, Honduras. She is a mother of nine, five of whom she brought on the long, arduous journey to the U.S. as one of the 5,000 plus Central American migrants traveling with the caravan in October 2018. Three others she left in Honduras, and another, the eldest, had already been living in the U.S., but had just been deported back to Honduras at the beginning of February 2019.<br /> <br /> Castro fled because her 13-year-old daughter had started to be threatened by the Maras, the local Mafia, who wanted her to sell drugs and start engaging in prostitution. Castro abusive husband had left three years prior and she’d been raising her children alone in Honduras since.