Luna Guzmán lived through brutal abuse in Guatemala, and has tried for years to seek asylum in the US, being detained by ICE and battling COVID along the way.
Today I can tell this story, mainly because I have been healing, but before I could not tell these things, he says sitting in his bed one day in February 2020; in the apartment he shares with three other tenants in Staten Island.
That day he cooked for other visitors. One of them is another Venezuelan, who was finally released from detention, although his partner is still in detention. There is also a Mexican transgender woman who shares her migratory story and sings rancheras.
Chase and escape
Calderón was politically persecuted. His lawyers managed to transfer him to a clinic by proving his hemophiliac status and the injuries it caused. He tried to regain his job and his life but failed. Between judicial presentations he says he received harassment, they wanted to detain me in any way possible. Then the judge who handled his case helped him flee and removed the alerts at airports for a few hours so that he could leave. And he did.