Despite his undocumented status, Francisco Hernandez-Corona, 34, and his U.S. citizen husband, Irving Hernandez-Corona, never thought they would leave the United States, but the new administration came into office and changed all that this January.
“We started seeing ICE everywhere and people sent to El Salvador,” said Francisco.
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“There would be knocks at the door and he (Francisco) would be scared and be terrified,” said Irving. “It was never our intention to leave under these circumstances. We left, basically fleeing.”
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SIGN UP They fled to Mexico’s west coast, flying into Puerto Vallarta three weeks ago, where they say they finally felt safe and wanted.
“(Mexicans) all were saying, 'Welcome back home! You belong here,'" said Francisco.
The warm welcome was greatly appreciated, but they still felt sad leaving behind their family in the United States.
“We still sit here in silence sometimes, hold each other and cry because of what we left,” said Irving. “We felt pushed out.”
The couple had just celebrated a milestone -- married last fall after three years of dating.
Francisco graduated from Harvard, where he studied clinical psychology and graduated in 2013. It had not been an easy road to get there.
“The worst three days of my life, I remember every moment walking through the desert,” said Francisco, whose father sent him to cross through the desert with a “coyote,” a migrant smuggler, when he was only 10 years old. “Nobody asked me if this is what I want to do. I didn’t have a choice.”
His family settled in Lennox, a small city near LAX, where Francisco excelled in school and was accepted to Harvard in 2009. Around that time, he was hit with another challenge.
“My mom died my senior year of high school,” said Francisco.
His mother lost her battle with a rare disease just months before he graduated. His younger sister moved to live with his older, adult sister in Texas, but Francisco stayed and was taken in by his teachers, who saw him through graduation and into an Ivy League education.
“I made it. This little, brown boy from Lennox is going to Harvard, that’s crazy,” said Francisco.
After graduation, he applied for DACA, Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals, under President Obama. Then he filed for a VAWA (Violence Against Women Act) visa, for women and children abuse victims and was allowed to apply because of violence he and his mother endured by his father, who had since divorced. Although, processing those visas are delayed by more than a decade and because he crossed over illegally twice, once with his mother on a tourist visa at 6 years old and the second time through the border at 10 years old, he faced a permanent bar from the U.S.
“Because of the choice my dad made when I was a child, U.S. law says it doesn’t matter. I don’t care that you were 10, I don’t care if you were bleeding in the desert, or crying in the desert alone. I don’t care that you didn’t choose this; you can no longer stay in a place that you call home,” said Francisco.
After marrying Irving last year, he thought there might be a way to fix his status.
“Then they tell me, 'You have a permanent bar, you can not do that. You have to leave the country,'” he said.
Lawyers told them to cancel their honeymoon to Puerto Rico, fearing Francisco might get detained. That’s when the couple decided to self-deport.
“That’s when I looked at him and said, 'Then, I guess we have to leave,'" said Francisco. “There isn’t any reason for us to stay here.”
“It’s such a hateful place, a hateful environment,” said Irving.
Now living in Mexico, they are trying to figure out the next steps and are grateful to still be working remote jobs from the U.S.
Francisco hopes to visit the Mexican grave where his mother was interred after she died in Los Angeles. He has never seen it in person, but worries that he will feel guilt that he failed to fulfill his dying mother’s wish.
“She said, 'I will die here so that you and your sisters could have a better life, so that you and your sisters could have the life that I've never had,'" he said.
Francisco said he hopes one day to come to return to the United States, raise children with Irving and hopefully send them to Harvard.
