In 2008, when Mexican journalist Emilio Gutiérrez Soto made the difficult decision to flee his homeland and seek refuge in the United States, he had little idea that he was embarking on an ordeal that would last more than a decade.
Gutiérrez says he never intended to come to the United States, but when soldiers broke into his home, taking his domestic identity documents, he knew he was stuck. There was nowhere for him to go in Mexico.
At the time, Gutiérrez faced a brutal dilemma: He could either continue reporting on drug cartels and corrupt Mexican military officials and live under the shadow of mounting death threats, or he could do what so many of his countrymen before him had done in seeking out a safer future for his family across the border.