Jonathan Goldstein

I'm so sorry.

As her partner Daniel makes himself dinner and the kids come and go from the living room, Yemelis tells me about her life before all of this, why she left Venezuela for the United States in the first place.

We were living hidden.

When I ask why that is, Yemelis just says political persecution and leaves it at that.

Her daughter, Indriani, had already migrated to the U.S.

and made a home for herself and her son in Minnesota.

Yamilis really missed them.

To see them again, she and her family embarked on a difficult journey, mostly done on foot.

She and her partner, Danielle, towed four little kids across South and Central America and through Mexico.

On the way from Colombia to Panama, they passed through the incredibly dangerous rainforest known as the Darien Gap.

Where a lot of people have died.

The Darien Gap is a roughly 60-mile stretch of rainforest.

It's the only gap in the Pan-American Highway.

No road, not even a dirt trail.

The area is filled with strong rivers, flash floods, and wild animals.

There is no police.

Many migrants are murdered and raped during passage.

But of all the places they traveled through, Yemelis says the parts of Mexico controlled by the cartels were the scariest.

She describes how while trying to avoid the immigration authorities, her family escaped into the forest.

Yamilis gestures towards her 12-year-old daughter who's sitting on the couch.