How an Ecuadorian family risked a 3,000-mile, 4-month journey to find a new life in Rochester

Dec. 9—ROCHESTER — Adriana Negrete had never seen snow before, but she always assumed it was beautiful, magical.

When she finally saw her first snowflakes coming down, at 40, the circumstances were far from wondrous.

Adriana and her family were cold and afraid. She spoke no English. And she was uncertain what to do in a large Midwestern city where she knew no one.

Months before, Adriana, her husband, Carlos Aquino, and two of her daughters, Génesis Campoverde, 14, and Sandy Michelle, 26, fled their native Ecuador, when the violence and bloodshed engulfing their country threatened them. How they ended up in Rochester is one of the many twists and turns to their remarkable, improbable journey.

Once referred to as the Athens of South America for its pristine colonial architecture and tranquil atmosphere, Ecuador has become the site of a bloody turf war among rival criminal organizations over drug-trafficking routes. Her husband, Carlos, had just barely escaped a gunman's bullet at point-blank range, leaving a wound across the top of his head.

A criminal syndicate tried to kill him as punishment for failing to pay protection money, Adriana and Carlos said. The couple worked in and owned a couple of small businesses, but the money being demanded of them exceeded their ability to pay, he said.

It takes more than 2,500 miles as the crow flies to reach the United States port of entry at Eagle Pass, Texas, from Milagro, Ecuador, their hometown.

During their four-month journey, they traveled by foot but also by bus and boat, truck and train. They followed other migrants through the Darien Gap, considered one of the world's most dangerous jungles. The route is lined with smugglers and criminal groups who extort and sexually assault migrants. Adriana said her family was kidnapped for a time by guerrillas when "we did not have money to enter the jungle."

They took as many precautions as they reasonably could. Before entering Mexico, one of eight countries they crossed, Adriana cut her younger daughter's hair and outfitted her in baggy clothes after being warned of cartels that kidnap and rape girls. When they ran out of money, they stopped and worked until they had enough to resume their journey.

And through it all, Adriana carried a Rochester, Minnesota, address in her pocket as the family's ultimate destination.

Three weeks after reaching Rochester, Adriana and Carlos were interviewed by the Post Bulletin about why they undertook a journey with so many uncertainties and perils. In the end, it was about self-preservation and giving Adriana's youngest daughter, Génesis, a better chance at life, they said.

The family has been bouncing from shelter to shelter since landing in Rochester. They are currently staying at the home of former Olmsted County Commissioner Stephanie Podulke, a member of the First Unitarian Universalist Church of Rochester. Until recently, their housing situation was uncertain, temporary and a homeless shelter was a possibility. But this week, the family was presented with keys to an apartment after the UU church agreed to sign the lease. Génesis is currently attending Century High School.

"They were joyful, jingling the keys like it was Christmas," Podulke said.

The family is seeking asylum.

Because of the language barrier, interpreters helped in the translation in two of the interviews. In a third one, Adriana and Carlos and a PB reporter took turns using Google Translate on their phones for a two-hour interview.

"We are a people of faith, and God gave us the strength and courage to do everything we did," Adriana said. "And he did not allow anything bad to happen to us."

In Ecuador, Adriana and Carlos met through their work as motorcycle taxi drivers. A couple of passengers sat in the back of the bikes while they zoomed through the busy streets of Milagro.

Both possessed small business instincts. They shared an interest in commerce, in thinking of ways of selling products and earning money. They also began to see each other outside of work. They started a small store together, selling candles, cigarettes, ointments and other items from a street cart. Adriana also had a side business, organizing and hosting themed parties for children.

"It was from time to time, but I really liked it," Adriana said. "I had a lot of fun."

But the mafia wanted a percentage of the proceeds they were making. As it was explained to Adriana and Carlos: We're letting you taxi passengers and tourists, but we expect to be paid. When they waited at airports or other places to pick up customers, those spaces didn't come free. Rent was expected to be paid.

Carlos said the mafia was "sophisticated." It was able to trace what was sold and for how much. In addition to owning two motor taxis, the couple rented other bikes as well. This led the mafia to believe that Adriana and Carlos had more money than they did. Their demands became exorbitant, sometimes equaling, if not surpassing, what they were making.

Carlos, a native of Venezuela, had left for Ecuador eight years ago because of the deteriorating social and economic situation in his native country. Now the mafia decided to make an example of him. They found out where he lived and two or three mafia figures came to his house at night to kill him. They placed a bag over Carlo's head and forced him into a kneeling position.

"They said, 'We're going to kill you, because you haven't paid,'" Carlos recalled.

Carlos heard a gun go off and blood spread down his face. The bullet had grazed the top of his head. Carlos heard someone yell, "Shoot him again!" He heard a click — a misfire. Carlos started running, disappearing into a nearby sugarcane field where he hunkered down for the rest of the night. Mosquitoes tormented him. He emerged from the field at first sunlight. Dressed in his underwear, he waved over a motorcyclist and was taken to a nearby house where he reported the incident to the police.

The couple were never able to shake the sense they were being stalked. Shadowy figures would show up at their house, peeking through windows. Génesis was often at the house, alone, adding to the sense of imminent peril.

And so they decided to leave Ecuador.

During their long odyssey, there were several times when one of them almost lost their life. In the Darien Gap, Adriana lost her footing and almost drowned in a river. Carlos almost fell into an abyss, Adriana said, "because the mud was too slippery and we went through it in the rain."

At some point in their journey but before reaching the U.S border with Mexico, her eldest daughter, Sandy, separated from the group and struck out on her own.

Sandy was anxious to reach the U.S., her grandmother having sent her funds "so (Sandy) could continue moving forward," Adriana said. Having left two children, ages three and six, behind in Ecuador when she set out for the U.S., Sandy hoped to send for her children once she settled in the U.S. and had earned some money.

"I told her not to stop because she was desperate," Adriana said.

But having reached Dallas, Sandy found herself marooned and struggling, being badly treated by the people who had taken her in.

"She contacted me yesterday, crying that she is not doing well there and wants to come here with me," Adriana said last week. "She is having a bad time. The people who gave her a roof over there seem to give her bad treatment."

Sandy is now heading to Rochester, a church member said, after a party came forward to pay the bus fare for the daughter.

After crossing the Texas border, Adriana, Carlos and Génesis were held at an immigration detention facility. There, border patrol agents had migrants searched and ordered them to remove their clothing and hand over their phones, earrings, even the rubber bands in their hair. Carlos was outfitted with an ankle bracelet. They were fingerprinted and given retinal scans.

They were housed with other migrants in a large warehouse, and because their clothes were still wet from crossing the Rio Grande, the facility felt like an icebox, a refrigerator, Adriana said.

"We didn't tell you to get in the river," a border patrol officer told them. "Just keep wearing them until they get dry."

Adriana gave immigration officials the Rochester address of a Venezuelan man the family knew. It was a vital piece of information: It let immigration authorities know that her family had a place to stay and a person to help them when they arrived in Rochester. Without it, they may have been sent back. They were given immigration papers that included a date for a hearing in St. Paul.

Adriana said they were given five days to reach Minnesota from the time they left the Texas detention center by bus. When they reached Chicago, they had no place to stay. A Spanish-speaking person told them the shelters wouldn't be available to them on such short notice. The only option was a police station, near where migrants and the homeless were living in a tented compound.

It was cold in Chicago. It was there that the three experienced their first snowfall. Other than a light blanket, Adriana, her husband and daughter had little in the way of protection from encroaching winter but the clothes they wore.

Though they knew no one, they still found help. A Catholic church or charity provided them with clothing and eventually plane tickets to Rochester. "A Mexican man" they met at the police station gave them a phone.

Rochester resident Garth Nelson and a business colleague, Qian Shi, were waiting to board their plane for Rochester at O'Hare International Airport when they noticed a family taking seats next to them. They weren't that focused on them at first. But when it was announced that their gate had changed, he could see the confusion and uncertainty on their faces.

Nelson and Shi were able to shepherd them to the right gate, and using Google Translate, found out that they were immigrants heading to Rochester.

"At one point, the mom said she was nervous because she hadn't flown before," Nelson said.

Nelson and Shi are also members of Rochester's First Unitarian Universalist Church, a church known for supporting homeless and indigent people and providing immigrants in detention with attorneys.

It was an amazingly fortuitous meeting for Adriana and her family.

Throughout the journey, Adriana had been counting on help from the Venezuelan man, a friend they knew from Ecuador, who had guaranteed a place for them to stay when they reached Rochester. It was his address that Adriana had given to immigration authorities as their final destination.

But when they landed at Rochester airport, the man in whom they placed their hopes never showed up, as they had hoped, and blocked their calls.

Nelson could see Adriana's distress and tears. He got on the phone and began calling people at First Unitarian Universalist Church.

"I was trying to get a hold of people through there because I didn't really know what to do. But we both knew that the Rochester airport wouldn't be a great place for a person to be left," Nelson said.

Nelson was able to reach Phil Wheeler, a church member and founder of the Southeastern Minnesota Interfaith Immigrant Legal Defense. And he in turn was able to contact Patricio Aleman, a Spanish-member of the church. He was able to learn elements of this Ecuadorian family's story and how they had gotten to Rochester.

Nelson and Shi took them to a local restaurant for a bite to eat. They were put up at a local hotel for several days until arrangements were made for them to stay at an area condominium where they live currently.

Wheeler said The Advocates for Human Rights, a Minneapolis-based nonprofit that advocates for migrant rights, has been contacted, and the organization has agreed to conduct an intake interview with the family to evaluate their situation and "see what they're up against." The church is taking donations through a

fundraising website

to help the family pay for rent, electricity, food and internet access for school. And Andriana and Carlos have begun taking English classes at Hawthorne Education Center.

Wheeler said Adriana and her family are not simply an example of people seeking a better life and opportunities for their daughter to have a more fruitful life. It's more fundamental than that. They want to live.

"It's not simply a better life (they are seeking). It's a life where they won't be shot," Wheeler said. "It's a different thing from, 'I wish I had a better job. I think I'll move to Rochester. And I wish I had a chance for my daughter to get an education.'

"It's, 'If they stay (in Ecuador), they're gonna kill me,'" Wheeler said.