Click here if you are unable to view this gallery on a mobile device.
VALLEJO — Andrea Sorce and Slater Matzke purchased their first home in May — a charming, spacious, three-bedroom tucked away in a quiet cul-de-sac along the waterfront.
Four months later, a 20-year-old Honduran woman seeking asylum landed on their doorstep. Ingrid Larissa Antunez moved in with the young couple at the end of September after several months in ICE detention, ready to start a new but uncertain life in the United States after her petition for asylum was granted.
In that moment, complete strangers became family.
Sorce, 32, and Matzke, 40, are among hundreds of Californians who have volunteered to host asylum seekers in the past year, opening their homes and their personal lives to immigrants who have just set foot in an unknown land, carrying just a few personal belongings and the trauma of their journeys. At a time when the country’s asylum system has deeply divided the nation — and as the administration of President Donald Trump works to keep out thousands of members of a migrant caravan stuck in Mexico — a growing number of Bay Area families are giving them a chance.
For some, it’s an opportunity to demonstrate the same hospitality and support they say they received as foreigners during long stays in other countries. For others, it’s a way to deepen their activism against the Trump administration’s immigration policies by offering refuge to immigrants fleeing political or religious persecution and seeking legal protection in the U.S.
“We’re a country of immigrants … that’s the blood of our country,” said Matzke, a management consultant. “There’s no legitimacy to the side that says we don’t accept and we don’t welcome humans here. For me, it wouldn’t be an authentic life if I wasn’t doing everything I possibly could to help people, especially those in need.”
He and Sorce met in the Peace Corps in Honduras in 2011, and said they were welcomed by generous people who helped them acclimate to life in Central America, opening their homes, offering them meals and showing them around. That inspired them to pay it forward in America, working with Freedom for Immigrants, a California nonprofit.
The group first established a host program in 2014 for volunteers who visited undocumented immigrants in ICE detention and wished to host them after their release. This year, the program was expanded to the public after growing interest from people wanting to house asylum seekers without family to rely on after their release from detention.
Since then, more than 800 people have signed up to either sponsor or host a person recently released from detention, including more than 330 in California and 100 in the Bay Area, according to Liz Martinez, a spokeswoman for the group.
“It’s a bold act of resistance,” said Martinez.
ICE detainees eligible to post bond are required to list an address to ensure they’ll stay in the area and keep their court dates after their release. Because many don’t have family or resources in the area, they can’t leave the jail. That’s where host families come in.
The separation of families at the Mexican border earlier this year and recent policies targeting asylum seekers have sparked an uptick in volunteers, Martinez said. Last month, the Trump administration announced new rules that would give the president sweeping authority to deny asylum to anyone who illegally crosses the U.S. border.
After the American Civil Liberties Union filed suit, a San Francisco judge in late November issued a temporary restraining order preventing the government from enforcing the new rules. The Justice Department appealed, noting that more than 396,000 immigrants were caught illegally crossing the U.S.-Mexico border in fiscal 2018.
“That is over 1,000 migrants every day — many with families and children — who are making a dangerous and illegal border crossing rather than presenting themselves for inspection at a port of entry,” the DOJ said in a legal filing. “The executive branch is entitled to use every legal tool available to halt this dangerous and illegal practice, as it has done here.”
The 9th Circuit Court of Appeals on Friday denied the government’s request, which means the Trump administration’s new asylum policy will remain blocked for now.
Antunez says she fled her home in San Pedro Sula, known as one of the most violent cities in the world, alone last year on Christmas Eve, leaving her parents and four siblings. She’s still not able to talk about why, but her hosts say it was a life-or-death situation.
After a treacherous journey through Mexico and into San Ysidro — where she was caught climbing over the border wall and petitioned for asylum — Antunez spent about six months at the Adelanto Detention Facility in Bakersfield. She was told she would never win her case.
“I would cry and cry,” she said. “I’d cry because nobody would want to go back to a country in which they’d be killed. I didn’t have an attorney. I left everything to God.”
Soon after, a pro bono attorney took up Antunez’s case. A judge ruled in her favor in September, granting her asylum and an opportunity for a new start. When she showed up at Sorce and Matzke’s doorstep, they had burgers for dinner that night and went to a Latin market the following day in search of Honduran food.
“It felt weird because I had never been with another family that wasn’t my own,” said Antunez. Soft-spoken and shy, she spoke in short sentences and giggled often. “I felt uncomfortable, but I’m getting used to it. I’m thankful to them for giving me a place to stay.”
She’s awaiting her final documentation in the mail and is anxious to start working, but the trauma of her journey lingers. Antunez doesn’t like to talk about why she fled. She talks of sleeping on the street during her journey north. But then she stops. “I can’t continue,” she said before trailing off, tears welling in her eyes.
“Nobody wants to leave their country, their home. It’s out of necessity,” said Sorce. “We saw a lot of people cry, we saw a lot of really difficult goodbyes and bad situations. And it’s only gotten worse.”
Visible from Susi Marzuola and Peter Waller’s living room window is a black sign that reads “Black Lives Matter.” On their front door, another message greets visitors: “Immigrants are welcome here.” Inside their Berkeley home, Noheli Sandoval, a Venezuelan immigrant who joined the couple about three months ago after her release from ICE detention, admires the Social Security card and work visa she received in the mail that day — a small victory as she awaits a final decision in her asylum case.
In the meantime, Sandoval spends her days with the couple, busy architects who have stepped up as her primary providers. The Kehilla Community Synagogue in Oakland, which first took Sandoval in, also offers critical support, shuttling her to immigration appointments, connecting her to community resources and helping her with food and other needs.
For Marzuola, 59, the decision to host Sandoval was personal: Her family lived in Venezuela for decades, where receiving guests and offering strangers a temporary place to stay was a way of life.
“We were hardly ever alone as a family,” she said. “That’s what we do.”
The nation’s debate over asylum seekers is nothing more than a hate campaign, she believes. “These are our people,” Marzuola said. “These are our neighbors, these are our friends in great need. Let’s help them.”
Sandoval, 32, said she fled domestic violence and political turmoil in Venezuela, leaving behind three children. She asked for asylum in San Ysidro earlier this year and was detained for four months before being taken in by Sam Davis, 46, of Oakland, and his wife, Yael Falicou, who learned about her case through the synagogue. She then moved in with Marzuola and Waller.
Still, Sandoval says she wouldn’t make the journey again.
“A lot of people have asked me and I tell them not to do it,” she said. “It’s not the time. It’s not a good experience. … I would tell them to think about it long and hard.”
