Victims of violent cartels told BBC they are now hiding from U.S. authorities

She had promised her daughter a trip to Disney World, Florida – but the originally planned vacation became a “terror” escape route.

Gabriela is not her real name, but from Guayaquil, Ecuador, where she leads what is called “normal middle-class life”: she worked on the TV channel for 15 years, she had a mortgage, and her daughter went to private school.

When she read headlines about the rise of violence in Ecuador – Gangs fighting cocaine trafficking routehomicides soar and blackmail spread – she believes the blackmail targets “millionaires.”

Then there is the first threat: a phone call warns her to pay or be shot. The caller knows her workplace and license plate.

Her daughter’s grandfather was kidnapped during the planned Disney World holiday.

Her family was asked to pay tens of thousands of dollars and received a video showing his fingers being cut off. He was eventually murdered, his fingers stayed in the bottle like mockery – BBC reported cases.

Fearing that Gabriela is not safe in Ecuador, her partner told her to take their daughter on a trip and not to come back.

Now, Gabriela is a shelter in the United States for millions. Although there are no exact numbers, many applicants from Latin America said they were driven away by cartel violence, which soared in several countries, including Ecuador.

But immigration law experts say their defense cases in the United States are becoming increasingly difficult.

Under the refugee convention drafted after World War II, the U.S. Asylum Law recognizes five reasons for asylum protection. They are based on: race, religion, nationality, political views or persecution by members of a specific social group.

The current U.S. Citizenship and Immigration said that people who evade persecution based on one of the five groups can only be asylum “only” but cartel violence is not exactly suitable for any of these categories.

According to Kathleen Bush-Joseph of the Institute for Immigration Policy, the law is the subject of “a lot of explanations.”

During his first term in office as U.S. President Donald Trump, his administration made it harder to seek asylum from gang violence or domestic violence – both categories seem to be related to crime between individuals, but in many countries, to systemic issues of justice and corruption.

Trump’s attorney general raised these claims and issued a directive: “Applicants must show that the government has forgiven private actions or proven that they cannot protect the victim.”

That can be difficult. Gabriela said reporting threats in countries like Ecuador could be risky. “If you’re lucky enough and they caught the criminal, then he’s likely going to come out the next day and try to kill you.”

The Biden administration abolished this legal interpretation, but the law remains the same, and those who fled the cartel are confused.

Donald Trump also makes crime cartels the target of his immigration policy – Designate some as terrorist organizations and Expel those he claimed to belong to themin some cases no evidence was provided.

Ms. Bush Joseph said it was too early to say how this would work in court, but for those who flee cartel violence, it could be “two-way.”

It could classify some of them as victims of “terrorists.” However, there are concerns that those who are forced to pay for extortion may also be accused of providing “material support” to these groups, even if the group is forced.

Gabriela agrees with Trump that the cartel members are “terrorists” and therefore his administration should recognize her and others as victims: “I hope the president can provide asylum to those who flee these terrorists from violence.”

Mario Russell, executive director of the Center for Immigration Research, believes that the legal definition of people who can claim asylum should be updated.

Currently, most victims end up claiming shelter on political grounds because they believe the cartels have so much social and political power that “as if they are governing entities.”

“The problem is that these people are suffering from violence and persecution, and persecuting us means terror. There is fear of their lives.”

Gabriela said she has not been given a date in her asylum interview – she plans to ask for political asylum. She believes that because some police and judges in Ecuador have gang connections, she will not feel that she will be threatened by gang members in her home country.

Mr Russell said about 70% of all asylum claims have been denied. He said the change under the Trump administration is that the detention of irregular but asylum-seeking immigrants has increased.

Data shows that 60,000 people are now being detained while awaiting the case.

This “changed the equation” because they “no longer live relatively peacefully” as they waited for a decision on the claim. He added that detention is “leverage” and a way to encourage people to give up and voluntarily accept deportation.

President Trump’s latest executive order expands deportation, U.S. immigration and customs enforcement (ICE) arrest rights, including suspending entry of many undocumented immigrants.

Ms. Bush-Joseph said the result was a “tremendous pressure” to deny the circumstances in which the case was not legally sufficient.

She said straightforward political cases may be approved soon, but the cartel case was tough and often denied at the initial review. She added that these applicants must “protect” while facing some “deport risks”.

For applicants like Gabriela, this means living effectively in lockdown. “We have been scared since President Trump took office,” she said.

She has a work permit, and her asylum claims are outstanding, and her manual labor force in the U.S. factory for a long time. “Our lives include work, family, work, nothing else. I don’t want to put us in another kind of trauma.”

“It’s stressful, unable to go out, relax and forget about our trauma,” she said, fearing to be reported and arrested.

She was worried about following the speed limit, and worried that any mistake could justify expelling her or rejecting her claim. Even though she experienced racism, she answered everyone politely.

Gabriela’s fears were shared by Maria, a lesbian in the Ecuadorian city of Durán, who was named one of the most violent people in the world. A gang also tried to blackmail her by sending threatening text messages.

She filed a complaint in the Ecuador’s prosecutor’s office, but a week later the criminal pulled her off her motorcycle, warned her to pay, and said, “Because you think you are a man, you don’t think anything will happen to you.”

Maria sold her bike and fled to the United States, where she now works as a dishwasher in New York.

She told us about the complaint she filed in Ecuador, but her asylum hearing was not arranged until 2028 in Maria, which means she “can’t enjoy life.”

“You have to hide, you don’t know when the raid will take place,” she explained.

There is a backlog of people in the United States, with about four million asylum cases waiting to be heard, and for many processes like Maria, it takes years.

Luis, a taxi driver, fled Durán after the gang tried to blackmail the driver from the co-op, and he was another.

“I never thought about immigration. But many of my friends were killed,” he said.

According to immigration law firm Spa & BernsteinRather than helping people flee gang violence, the U.S. government calls some cartels a terrorist organization, may actually lead to certain applications being found unacceptable.

Those who pay smugglers to help them reach the United States, or who “work in a cartel-controlled town and paid for protection funds” are seen as being associated with the group they are trying to escape – and seeing their shelter refuse.

Matthew J. Tagesser, a spokesman for U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services, said the U.S. asylum law protects “very limited amount of persecuted foreigners.”

He also blamed the backlog of “fraud and frivolous” claims under the Biden administration and said new legislation would increase asylum fees to reduce fraud.

He added: “Pending asylum claims do not protect aliens from law enforcement.”

Meanwhile, Americans seem to have disagreements over Donald Trump’s immigration actions. Pew’s survey since June found that 60% of people disapprove of the moratorium on most asylum applications. 54% opposed the increase in raids. However, support is very different from the party.

The majority (65%) support the legal avenues left by undocumented immigration, while 23% are worried that they or close people may be deported.

Gabriela, Maria and Luis insist that those who escaped cartel violence were misunderstood. They accepted why they might be deported, but believed that law-abiding immigrants should stay “pay taxes”.

“We want what everyone wants: work, live in a state of law and order, no longer live in horror, and don’t know if you or your children will return home.”