“Luis asked me for direction. I told him, ‘Man, it’s your picture. How do you want the old you to remember the young you?’ He blinked hard and breathed, and his face reset. The thing is, Luis is hilarious and isn’t ever not laughing. But his expression, this face he chose, didn’t line up with the laughs. There was more to it, I felt then and I feel now. The funniest kid from the hardest place suddenly without smile. Luis is Moises’ best friend, and he misses his big brother who left.” —Tomas Ayuso

San Pedro Sula, Honduras, April 2018.

Luis laughs while talking to Moises on FaceTime. Moises had made it to the United States border. He’d ridden atop the train 2,000 miles by himself, poised to leave behind the pathos he was born into. Moises had broken from the short, fated life he was meant to suffer at the edge of San Pedro.

San Pedro Sula, Honduras, April 2018.

“Tavo had asked his son Moises to flee the country while he could: ‘I tell him, Baby don’t dress like a fucking gang member. He doesn’t listen. I don’t know if you know this Tomas, but the police here don’t care if you’re in a gang or not. They’ll kill you either way, dump your body in the sugar cane and let the crocodiles take care of the rest. My Moises is a good boy, I raised him good. But he’s surrounded with the homies and that’ll be the end of him,’ says Tavo, with tears. ‘The way I see it, his life got three outcomes: get killed by the cops or a rival gang for thinking he’s a gang member (which he’s not), join a gang because it’s what’s left to protect himself and I’ll kill him, or flee the country and hope for the best.’

Tavo kicks the artisanal soldered pipe bike over and hits his chest with a calloused fist covered in mortar flakes, the other hand gripping my shoulder. ‘I’m a simple farmer, mijo. I have my corn, I have my house, and I have my kids. My hands been worked raw and I’m tired of fighting. Fighting to not starve, fighting for my kids. But if I tell you the truth, I think Honduras left old shits like me behind, and started eating its young.’ Tavo piously clasps his hands in a plea, he looks at the storm above. ‘I can only ask god to have clemency on my Moisa.’ Moises would leave the neighborhood soon after, without telling a soul.”

—Tomas Ayuso

San Pedro Sula, Honduras, August 2017.

First as lookouts and later as full-fledged gang members, neighborhood children are groomed at a young age by their brothers, cousins, and neighbors. The slow process of recruitment into gangs is often the only viable option, as communities have little in the way of alternatives for abandoned young people with nothing to lose.

San Pedro Sula, Honduras, August 2017.

Moises (left) and Jaime (right) sit atop a hill in their neighborhood to daydream of a future far from the tension of the streets. A half-decade of peaking violence has carved up San Pedro Sula, its low-income districts enduring the harshest scars. Though clashes between gangs and police remain, the persistent top-down pressure of corruption and economic dispossession continues to fray communities, and particularly young people, who live along the periphery of Honduras’ second largest city.

San Pedro Sula, Honduras, August 2017.

Nico made a brutal decision by choosing to flee rather than join a gang. He clutches a fantasy close to his chest as motivation while on his journey: “I want to become a doctor, I want to be a good man. I want to fight evil in my country, and all of Central America.”

Arriaga, Mexico, March 2015.

“I've been robbed, beaten for my money and shoes. Still, I thank God: As long as there is life and hope, I’ll have what matters.” Israel jumps between cars just as the beastly freight train rouses from its slumber and lurches forward on its journey towards the United States–Mexico border.

Arriaga, Mexico, July 2015

“‘I can't go home,’ he says. He is a marked man. I show him his portrait and he weeps. He had escaped gang life and hadn’t seen a picture of himself in years: ‘I can't believe what my life’s become. I stay awake at night filled with anxiety. I’m not a bad man, I never had a choice.’ On his chest a tattoo reads ‘catracho,’ slang for Honduran.” —Tomas Ayuso

Celaya, Mexico, March 2017.

“I asked him: ‘What do you see, brother?’ Reverently and transfixed, he said, ‘The dream, brother.’” —Tomas Ayuso

Left: A young man in a rough border town looks over a security wall into Texas.

Right: The natural border between Mexico and Texas.

Reynosa, Mexico, February 2015.

Misael imposes his will on the pitch against Mexican defenders. He out-maneuvers the rival team and blasts a banger into the back of the net. His team celebrates an early lead as the crowd erupts in xenophobic howls.

Mexico City, Mexico, July 2017.

A cross is wired to the exposed rebar atop the boys’ apartment building to invoke the lord’s protection. Despite living in a rough and tumble neighborhood plagued by many of the issues they fled from in La Ceiba, Honduras, they’ve managed to find peace and family.

Mexico City, Mexico, July 2017.

Duvan speaks to his parents back home via FaceTime. He has just arrived in Mexico with the help of Theo who took him in. After surviving the journey, Duvan could barely contain his excitement. He told his mother just how different Mexico is as she repeated, “Thank God, thank God, thank God.”

Mexico City, Mexico, July 2017.

With cicadas loud in the summer air, the border defense militia, Free Nebraska, begins its watch over the Rio Grande. A member of the militia stands on a river bend on the Texan side, opposite a pine forest in Northern Mexico. There, he waits to intercept any would-be border crossing individuals.

Los Ebanos, United States, August 2015.

In this border town, recently arrived people use this cemetery to hide among Christian statues and century-old graves after crossing the Rio Grande. After being displaced, traveling, and crossing the border’s water, they reach America and their life in the shadows begins immediately.

Los Ebanos, United States, August 2015.

But before truly arriving into the United States, the final migration checkpoints lie inland along northward highways, such as the known checkpoint near Falfurrias, an hour from McAllen, Texas.

Falfurrias, United States, August 2015.

Theo searches for a mobile signal on his rooftop, the electric glow of Mexico City behind him. He asks his estranged family for help to make rent. They refuse. He’ll find a way to pay the landlord with the help of his new chosen family, “Los Boys,” a group of young men from La Ceiba, Honduras, who live together on the outskirts of Mexico City. They had fled the surging violence and dearth of employment opportunities back home and had planned to seek asylum in the United States. But after surviving the harrowing migrant route through southern Mexico and hearing of anti-immigrant sentiment in the United States, they chose to stay in Mexico and earn a living as talacheros, footballers-for-hire in Mexico’s regional football leagues.

Mexico City, Mexico, July 2017.

Orlin lived in Tampa for 10 years doing construction until he was deported to Honduras, without a way back to his family in Florida. While attempting to cross Mexico, he was beaten and tortured by criminals who prey on migrants. Yet, still, he refuses to give up, as his life all but stopped the moment he was separated from his family. “My wife and little girl are my world and every day we’re apart is a day of my life I lose.”

Tenosique, Mexico, April 2017.