Shelby nursing student’s deportation fight shows high cost of seeking asylum

SHELBY, N.C. — A Shelby woman’s struggle to stay in the U.S. is highlighting the steep financial and emotional toll of seeking asylum.

Attorneys told Channel 9’s Ken Lemon that even for honor students with no criminal record, like Allison Bustillo, 20, the odds are stacked against them.

PAST COVERAGE: Shelby woman forced to leave US after months in ICE custody

Federal agents have said that anyone in the country undocumented is here illegally.

Bustillo is an honor student studying nursing at Gardner-Webb University on a scholarship.

ICE agents looking for another man knocked at her door then arrested her instead.

Channel 9’s sister station, Telemundo, interviewed Bustillo virtually from an ICE detention center in Georgia. She has been there for six months.

“Mentally, I’m very exhausted,” she said.

The once proud honor student said she doesn’t recognize herself since her arrest in January.

She decided to self-deport back to Honduras, a place she hasn’t seen since she was 8 years old, rather than fight to stay.

“Because I, literally, cannot do it in here anymore,” Bustillo said from the detention center.

Her mother said her only memory of Honduras is of men pointing guns at her.

Alex Gonzalez, an immigration attorney in Houston, said Bustillo’s decision illustrates how draining life at an ICE detention center can be.

“She’d rather (self-deport) than (remain) in that immigration holding facility, I think that tells you a lot about what the facility is like,” Gonzalez said.

He said seeking citizenship is expensive.

There are annual asylum fees, attorney fees and multiple hearings.

A lot of them are pushed back, year after year.

He said the process is difficult even for those who can avoid detention.

For those like Bustillo, who have never been in trouble before, it’s overwhelming.

“I have a lot of mixed emotions. I have a lot of fear,” she said.

Gonzalez said the some who are lucky enough can pay as little as $5,000, but most people will pay more.

Other attorneys said it’s as much as $20,000 for someone who is undocumented and likely can’t get a job that makes that cost affordable.

VIDEO: Shelby woman forced to leave US after months in ICE custody