Their stories were accompanied by heart-wrenching sobbing. One 17-year-old Honduran girl shakily recounted how on the trip to the U.S., she watched a leader of the infamous Zeta cartel murder a man who didn’t have enough money for the trip. Then, she said, the Zeta leader raped the murdered man’s wife.

This kind of violence and horror unfortunately is not new for these children. The countries from which they are fleeing — Guatemala, Honduras and El Salvador — are some the most dangerous regions in the world.

They shared story after story of being terrorized by gang violence.

One 16-year-old Honduran boy could barely speak through tears as he told how “gangsters said my cousin and I had to sell drugs with them and we said no. They took us to a cemetery and put a bullet through my cousin’s head. They let me go and said the same thing would happen to me if I didn’t sell drugs.”