You need a story. That’s what they say, anyway. You need sympathetic characters, a villain, some violence, maybe a dramatic escape. That’s what it takes to gain asylum in the United States. You need lots of other things, too—a principled Border Patrol agent, a competent asylum officer, a good lawyer, a fairminded judge—but before any of that you need a story, something that can be fitted into the rapidly narrowing margin of American benevolence. You need a man, say, draping his arm around your shoulder, telling you, “We are watching you.”
That’s where the story of Gaspar Cobo Corio and Francisco Chávez Raymundo might begin. “We are watching you,” the man said out of nowhere. “You didn’t even notice that I have been following you. This was not just today. I have always been following you.”
It was not the first time that Gaspar had been threatened, but this time—right after a town hall meeting he’d organized with Francisco, a fellow Mayan human rights activist—was different from the harassing phone calls, the angry texts, the break-ins, and even the stickups the two had endured ever since they’d started challenging Guatemala’s culture of official impunity.
This story is from the November/December 2020 edition of Mother Jones.
Start your 7-day Magzter GOLD free trial to access thousands of curated premium stories, and 8,500+ magazines and newspapers.
Already a subscriber ? Sign In
This story is from the November/December 2020 edition of Mother Jones.
Start your 7-day Magzter GOLD free trial to access thousands of curated premium stories, and 8,500+ magazines and newspapers.
Already a subscriber? Sign In
Let Them Eat Kelp
Is seaweed farming the wave of the future?
To Match a Predator
Dating apps promise to hook you up with romance. But they can deliver con artists, rapists, and murderers.
A Pennsylvania Prophet
Meet the Christian nationalists who want to assert dominion-starting with the Keystone State.
"I'm Not Turming the Other Cheek Any More"
Radicals took over the Michigan GOP. Now they can't stop losing.
"Absolutely Do Not Send Them There"
Foster kids have few advocates and little agency. That makes them the perfect cash cow for the country's biggest psychiatric hospital chain.
RICH DOC, POOR DOC
Why do the most important kinds of doctors earn the least money?
FREEDOM READERS
Authors of banned books-like me-are battling right-wing censorship daily. But we can't do it alone.
VAPOR TRAIL
After a cannabis product turned up at my kid's school, I rode into the Wild West of unregulated pot.
MEDICAL RESTRAINTS
How health care companies use debt to trap nurses on the job
Bad Neighbors
Tightly packed poultry and pig farms could be incubating the next deadly flu.