Franco left her job as a secretary for an engineer, as well as the LGBT support group she led in Guatemala City, for the peace and freedom she thought awaited her in the U.S. After a long journey by bus, then aboard La Bestia, Franco made it to Querétaro, Mexico. There, she said, she was held captive by drug runners.“They gave those of us that didn’t have family in the U.S. a jacket with drugs inside,” she recounted. “They said if you can’t pay, you need to carry these drugs, or we will kill you.”Franco said that she was bound to one of the men with a plastic zip tie, who cut it and ran when border patrol spotted them crossing the Rio Grande. She was caught by officials in Hidalgo, TX, and sent to a detention center.Immigration officials released her, reportedly finding she had a “credible fear” of returning home. She was ordered to report back to immigration officers every three months. Franco said she hadn’t missed an appointment since 2009. But when her attorney filed her application for asylum with the wrong court, she faced the threat of deportation.“Sulma Franco-Chamale had been afforded full due process and exhausted all her legal options,” Carl Rusnok, the central region spokesman for the U.S. Immigration Enforcement Agency (ICE), said in a statement.She did have one last option, it turned out.A volunteer working at the detention center recommended she reach out to First Unitarian Church, a left-leaning congregation in Austin with many young members, for an emergency plan.According to an official memo by ICE, institutions of worship — along with schools and hospitals, and places holding weddings and funerals — are considered “sensitive locations.” Immigration agents will not conduct surveillance or make arrests in these spots unless there is an imminent risk of harm to others.Now, Franco has been granted a stay of removal until 2017 — and she is pursuing permanent residency in the new city she calls home.In the meantime, she’s grateful to be out of the confines of immigration detention centers and beyond the walls of the church sanctuary. She is trying to obtain a work visa and funding to open a food truck and has even been traveling around to other states to speak to immigrants in detention centers.But Franco said she is especially thankful for the opportunity to live openly with her partner, another immigrant woman from Central America whom she met after relocating to Texas five years ago, enjoying things as simple as eating at a restaurant in public.“You can go, eat, and relax,” she said of life in the U.S. “They’ll treat you well, and serve you. And nobody stares at you. In my country, you could never do that.”