Los Angeles • Latter-day Saint Evelyn Caceres says it was only after a Salvadoran gang killed her sister and, years later, threatened to kill her and her daughter, that the single mother of two decided to follow her remaining sister’s example and bolt for the United States with her children.
Since arriving in 2018, Caceres has held fast to her faith, attending church weekly and accepting volunteer leadership positions, including counselor in her congregation’s Relief Society for women. And so it was fitting that her bishop, or lay leader of her congregation, was the one by her side when she learned in December that she had two months to return to El Salvador or risk arrest.
“I am devastated,” the 47-year-old told The Salt Lake Tribune in Spanish through a translator. “I will have to start from scratch in my country.”
(Tamarra Kemsley | The Salt Lake Tribune) Evelyn Caceres and daughter Jacqueline outside their home in south-central Los Angeles.
Soft-spoken and practical in dress and manner, the resident of south-central Los Angeles is one of countless members of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints living in the United States without permanent legal residency.
That is not to say, however, that she is here illegally.
As is the case with many “undocumented” U.S. residents, Caceres and her children claimed asylum — protection granted by the United States to those facing persecution in their home nation — upon their arrival at the border.
As she wrote in the personal statement submitted to the judge who ultimately denied her case, “I didn’t come here for the American dream. I came here to leave the threats, the danger.”
Fleeing to safety
Much of that peril came in the form of MS-13, a violent and well-organized gang that had, by the mid-2010s, turned the Central American nation into one of the world’s most dangerous countries (that has changed under the iron-fisted rule of popular dictator Nayib Bukele).
In 2010, Caceres said, her younger sister, then 22 years old, was slain by a gang member after she rebuffed his advances.
“She was,” Caceres recalled, “such a pretty woman.”
A few years later, her daughter, Jacqueline, then 13, stood up to a machete-wielding MS-13 member intent on killing her dog after it bit him, the mother explained. The dog (and the girl) was saved, but Caceres couldn’t help but think about how her sister living in California never had a problem with men with machetes. A short time later, Caceres said, she had a knife pressed against her back when she ventured into the wrong neighborhood.
Estranged from a husband she alleges was abusive and putting her faith in God, she took her children by the hand and headed for her sister’s place in Los Angeles.
Whether the gamble paid off for the laundromat worker is hard to say.
‘I never came back’
Jacqueline, now 24, has obtained legal status known as Special Immigrant Juvenile classification and is on her way to becoming a green card holder. Shy and reserved like her mother, she said she struggles to sleep at night knowing that her mother will soon be thousands of miles away.
(Tamarra Kemsley | The Salt Lake Tribune) Mother and daughter catch up on each other's day while putting away dishes.
Caceres’ son, Andre, has been less fortunate.
For a year, the 20-year-old has been sitting in a detention center in the Mojave Desert, waiting to learn if he will be deported.
Mere weeks into the Trump II administration — which has vowed to enforce existing immigration laws — Andre was attending a routine check-in with immigration authorities when he was handcuffed and his belongings were whisked away.
“It was crazy and sad because in the morning, before I left the house, I told my mom I need to check in with ICE [Immigration and Customs Enforcement] and I’ll be back in an hour,” he told The Tribune over a line that charges him 10 cents per minute. “I gave her a hug and a kiss, and I never came back.”
(Tamarra Kemsley | The Salt Lake Tribune) Photographs of Evelyn Caceres and her children, Jacqueline and Andre.
Andre described life in detention as monotonous and cruel.
“They treat you,” he said, “like criminals.”
At times, he has found worms in his food, he said, and at one point was kept in his cell for 23 hours a day after he talked back to guards rummaging through his few personal belongings.
To pass the time, he has taken to reading the Book of Mormon, especially the story of the prophet Nephi. Sometimes, when he is especially excited about something he’s read, he talks about it with his mom, their daily chats turning into long-distance family scripture study.
Caceres, who keeps a copy of the Spanish translation of the faith’s foundational scripture in her home’s main living space, said she plans to find a new Latter-day Saint congregation to attend in San Salvador (there are more than 150 in the country) — the site of her conversion more than 20 years ago — upon her return in less than two weeks.
(Tamarra Kemsley | The Salt Lake Tribune) Latter-day Saint literature sit atop a copy of the Book of Mormon in Caceres' living room.
(Tamarra Kemsley | The Salt Lake Tribune) Caceres indulges her beloved dog, Odie, with a treat while a family friend looks on.
When she does, she will be leaving behind not only her two children but also her dog, Odie, named for the “Garfield” cartoon character.
“The truth is, I feel peace. I feel loved by my Heavenly Father,” she said. “The things that I have lived throughout my life could be a reason to push me away from God, from the church, from faith. But they haven’t. I’m still here. He’s here. Heavenly Father’s here. I have a testimony of that.”
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