Tears collected in Maryori Urbina-Contreras’ eyes as she stood outside Chicago’s U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services building, an American flag grasped tightly in her hand. The 24-year-old blotted her eyes before turning to enter the building where her citizenship test awaited.

The test was a long time coming for Urbina-Contreras, who arrived in the U.S. in 2014 from Honduras after experiencing and witnessing gang violence in her hometown of Tegucigalpa.

At age 13, Urbina-Contreras left Honduras without telling anyone and with $20. She sought to find her mom, who had left when she was just 8 months old and wound up in Waukegan. The trip took Urbina-Contreras a month as she traveled the 1,900 miles through Guatemala and Mexico on her own by foot, bus and car, even rafting across t

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