In Mexico, she found herself facing a pregnancy resulting from rape.
The woman, like others interviewed for this article, chose to remain anonymous for safety reasons.
She recounted being sexually assaulted by a Mexican cartel while being held captive in the perilous border town of Reynosa, in the state of Tamaulipas, just a few miles from the U.S. border.
Upon reaching Texas and being unable to obtain an abortion, she became ensnared in the intersection of America’s immigration system and the state's abortion ban.
Her situation is not unique. She is one of many migrants arriving in the U.S. with unwanted pregnancies, falling victim to a disturbing trend of violence emerging on the Mexican side of the border.
Cartels are systematically abducting and extorting ransom from migrants heading north, using sexual violence as a means of payment from those unable to pay with money.
Lacking proficiency in English and overwhelmed by the intricate legal landscape surrounding reproductive rights, the Salvadoran migrant turned to online forums for information on accessing abortion pills.
She learned she needed a combination of mifepristone and misoprostol, the FDA-approved regimen for medical termination of pregnancy, which has been banned in 14 Republican-led states, including Texas, since the Supreme Court overturned Roe v.
Wade in 2022. Fearful of the consequences in Texas, she traveled to a neighboring state for a self-administered medication abortion. “I felt ashamed. It was as if everyone knew, but in reality, no one knew anything,” she said.
"'This is what happens to you for not paying ransom'"
“A group of more than 20 people raped me.
They said, ‘This is what happens when you don't pay ransom and so you remember that Mexican territory is respected,’” recounted a female asylum-seeker from Guatemala to NBC News.
Between October and December 2023, Doctors Without Borders noted a 70% increase in consultations for sexual violence in the Mexican border towns of Reynosa and Matamoros compared to the previous three months.
In the first two months of 2024, nearly 70 cases of sexual violence against migrants were recorded in the same area.
The Guatemalan asylum-seeker is one of these victims.
She was forced to flee Guatemala with her husband and two young daughters last year after receiving death threats from the same gang that had killed nearly half of her family.
Their journey north was met with unimaginable violence when the Gulf Cartel intercepted the bus they were traveling on from Monterrey to Reynosa.
The bus was full of migrants heading to the border.
“A white truck cut us off, and men in black boarded the bus, saying, ‘We're from the Gulf [Cartel].’ My husband looked at me and said, ‘They're going to kill us.’”
Founded in Tamaulipas in the 1980s, the Gulf Cartel controls various armed factions in the border cities of Nuevo Laredo, Reynosa, and Matamoros.
The rise in irregular migration has provided the cartel with another lucrative opportunity: kidnapping migrants for ransom and using sexual violence as a form of extortion.
“They stripped me in front of my husband and beat me when I told them I had no money,” she said. “‘Then you'll pay us with your body,’” she said the cartel replied.
While NBC News could not independently verify her account, three other migrants interviewed for this article described similar experiences.
Organized crime groups have taken advantage of the long waiting periods migrants face on the Mexican side of the border, caused by policies like former President Donald Trump’s Title 42 and the Remain in Mexico program, as well as President Joe Biden’s CBP One App process.
These policies force migrants to wait in some of Mexico’s most dangerous cities until their immigration appointments are scheduled, which can take months.
Jennifer Harbury, an activist and lawyer with over 40 years of experience advocating for human rights in Latin and Central America, criticized these policies.
“These are mothers with young children, young men who have refused to become drug mules, elderly people who have been pushed out of their homes,” she said.
“They've endured hell on Earth, and they're dying because we [the U.S.] keep pushing them back. We're killing refugees.”
Customs and Border Protection did not respond immediately to a request for comment.
According to CBP, the use of the CBP One™ app to schedule appointments at land ports of entry has increased their capacity to process migrants more efficiently and orderly while reducing the influence of unscrupulous smugglers who exploit and profit from vulnerable migrants.
However, some migrants disagree.
“Many people are now boarding buses and asking passengers if they are going to their appointments,” said a young Mexican woman who migrated to the U.S.
due to escalating violence from cartel factions in her region.
She has witnessed how cartels are systematically exploiting the situation. “Some people say yes, and they are taken off the bus, their bags are searched, and they are stripped of all their money.
They are also beaten so their captors can send a video to their family members to show that they are truly kidnapped. With these appointments, everything is spiraling out of control.”
Taking matters into their own hands
The U.S. abortion politics are impacting migrants who have been victims of sexual assault on their way to the border, such as the Honduran asylum-seeker who encountered the Texas abortion ban.
Weeks after undergoing her own self-managed medication abortion, she stumbled upon an unexpected opportunity in Texas: five doses of misoprostol, one of the abortion pills she had previously used.
Despite the potential penalties for distributing the pills, she decided to defy the state's law and assist other women in similar situations.
“I had two options: either harm my record or help — I said, ‘I prefer to help, and whatever happens, happens.’” She gave her last dose to a recently arrived migrant in Texas who had also discovered she was pregnant after entering the U.S. “She told me, ‘I just got here, and I am pregnant.
I need the pills.’ I said, ‘OK, I am going to drop them off.’”
By doing so, the Honduran migrant not only defied the state’s law but also jeopardized her own immigration status in a state attempting to impose criminal penalties on migrants.
However, she stated that her desire to help outweighed her fear.
It drove her to extend a hand to a group of people trapped in the dangerous intersection of America’s immigration and abortion policies — a gray area that migrants may not comprehend as they journey north, towards that so-called American Dream.