‘You Have to Pay With Your Body’: The Hidden Nightmare of Sexual Violence on the Border

MCALLEN, Tex. — It was dark in the stash house where they kept her, the windows covered so no one could see inside.

• Manny Fernandez
• The New York Times

At first, the smugglers had her cook for the other migrants who had recently crossed illegally into the United States.

Then they took her to a room upstairs, locked the door and began taking turns with her.

It was the summer of 2014, and Melvin, a 36-year-old mother of three, had just completed the journey from her native Guatemala, crossing the Rio Grande on a raft before being led to the house in the…

For weeks in that locked room, the…

• ‘You Have to…