María Antonio Reyes tells the story of her journey from El Salvador to the United States. Haya El Nasser

When gangs in Apopa, on the edge of the Salvadoran capital, San Salvador, told Reyes’ older sons that they would be killed if they went back to school, she felt she had no choice but to send them away. The gangs were forcing her to give them $50 every two weeks out of her paltry income selling perfume door to door. She had already lost a brother to gang murder.

“He went out to buy groceries and never came back,” she said.

Last year her 18-year-old, Milton Samuel López Reyes, made the journey, which included a three-day walk through the desert. Her 20-year-old son quickly followed.

When gangs approached Brian, she said she had no choice. She saved the $7,000 she needed to hire a coyote to guide her and Brian from El Salvador to Mexico and across the U.S. border.

“[The gangs] wanted me to join them,” Brian said. “They wanted me to give information” about money that his siblings in the U.S. might be sending home.

Brian and María Reyes’ journey from El Salvador included 12 days on a bus across mountains, a boat crossing of the Rio Grande and a long walk to a highway that led them to a Border Patrol station. The two were booked, fingerprinted and detained.

“I was afraid they would send me back,” Reyes said. Luckily, she has two sisters in San Bernardino, California, which meant she could leave while awaiting a court hearing, which is not scheduled until next April because of backlogs.

Border Patrol drove them to a spot where they could get transportation. They paid $50 for a taxi to San Antonio, where they bought bus tickets to California. They arrived May 10.

She’s safe. So is her son. And she is has been reunited with her older sister, Catalina — who still bears scars on her arm, shoulder and face from knife attacks by gangs back home — and nine other relatives in the area.

Reyes smiles. Brian smiles. They made it. but this is far from being a fairy tale with a happy ending. The two break down and cry when they talk about Reyes’ 1-year-old, Anderson Alejandro, whom they left behind with his father.

“On one hand, it feels good because my sons are here,” Reyes said. “But it feels bad because I’m thinking about my [other] son.”

She also worries that the gangs will pounce on her husband to get at any of the money his family in the U.S. may send him.