Mariposas Sin Fronteras

Ekundayo is a 40-year old gay man from Nigeria who has been held in immigration prison in Eloy Detention Center for eight months. In Nigeria, Ekundayo’s cousins discovered that he was gay, beat him severely, and turned him over to the police. The police tortured him for weeks, beating him in the genitals and mutilating him. A family member took pity on him and bonded him out, but when he returned home he had been disowned and all of his belongings had been sold. Ekundayo made his way to Gabon where people told him that the only way he would be safe as a gay man was to request asylum in the United States. He was smuggled aboard a ship and kept secretly in the hold for three months until the ship docked in Mexico. Ekundayo then hitchhiked and walked across Mexico to reach the United States in spite of walking with a crutch because he was crippled by polio as a child. When he reached the San Isidro port-of-entry in California, he asked for asylum. He was taken into ICE custody and transferred to Eloy Detention Center.