Andrew KimmelVerified account

We had to tell the woman secretly that we could help her find a place to stay, as the facility doesn’t allow it. So we told her to wait for us outside. Without shelter, she’d be on the streets with no money, no identification, no phone, and not a clue of what to do.

Things unfortunately took a turn for the worse. We left the facility and walked back to the parking garage for our car. The Cuban woman was standing near a bus stop outside and we told her to keep waiting for us. When we pulled out, she was walking w/ a man on his phone.

The man was well-dressed in pressed pants and I’m guessing in his 60’s. We told the woman to get in our car. She told us, “This man says he can find a safe place for me to be. He says he can help me until I find out what to do.” This all took place right in front of the facility.

My contact said we couldn’t get caught taking someone by the facility or we wouldn’t be allowed back to. So we quickly drove around the block to get in front of the Cuban woman again. By the time we made it around, the woman was gone. She was kidnapped right in front of us.

There are two different kinds of groups who prey on the most desperate once they are sent back... coyotes & polleros. I asked my contact how to spell the latter and they requested I not even say the name out loud.

We are now attempting to reach out to her sister who she spoke with earlier. At least to pass on a message of where a safe location would be for her to meet up with us at. It is hard to describe this feeling.

We got in touch with her sister. She told us she did speak with her sister on the man’s phone and that she said she’s ok. This is unfortunately not true. We will call again later tonight, but there isn’t much else we can do at this point...

Sex/human trafficking are nothing new to the city of Juárez. But with an influx of migrants/refugees trying to make their way to the US, and w/ the US turning away more people and implementing Trump’s new “Migrant Protection Protocol”, we are putting more innocent people at risk.