Many Venezuelans won’t Qualiify for the Legal Pathway Set-Up to Help Them: A Journey Through the Borders of Mexico and New York

They are not legally married, so they were turned away. A couple needed to fill out some paperwork in order to stay at the shelter. On top of that, it was Sunday — and they couldn’t get the paperwork they needed until Monday.

Villegas says that he and Pineda came to New York because they did not know where else to go. They had heard good things about the city from other migrants, they said, and the shelter in Texas where they were staying offered them free bus tickets.

The Biden administration wants migrants to stay away from this route. Last week, the U.S. and Mexico announced a deal that would allow immigration authorities to quickly expel Venezuelan migrants if they cross the border illegally.

“They’re starting over in very precarious circumstances,” said Andrew Selee, the president of the Migration Policy Institute, a nonprofit in Washington, D.C., “because they don’t have the social networks in the United States that other migrants generally do.”

They don’t have work permits. They do not understand the immigration system. Villegas and Pineda have done demolitions, while the other is occasionally cleaning houses.

“They know whose couch they’re going to sleep on. They know who’s going to help them try to get their first job or maybe has already gotten that first job for them. Selee said that theVenezuelans don’t seem to be part of the planned migration.

Source: https://www.npr.org/2022/10/15/1129295198/many-venezuelan-migrants-will-not-qualify-for-the-legal-pathway-set-up-to-help-t

The New York City homeless shelter system struggles to survive in the presence of Mexican border officials. “Family Venezuelans, kidnapped, and harassed”, said Adams

New York City has a homeless shelter system that is already struggling. New York Mayor Eric Adams declared a state of emergency earlier this month as the city prepares relief centers to house new immigrants.

The hardest part was Mexico. The family said Mexican border authorities harassed them, detained them for three days, and stole their personal belongings. They said they saw children being kidnapped off the streets. For added protection, the family continued their journey alongside three other Venezuelan migrants.

In a press conference with his Mexican counterpart last week, Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas said that it was the responsibility of the US to build safe, lawful, and humane pathways for them so that they don’t need to use their more desperate and dangerous measures.

Migrants will have to take strict measures in order to qualify. They must apply from abroad; any migrants who cross the U.S. border illegally are disqualified. A sponsor in the US is necessary to support them.

The New York – El Paso Border Refugees Reconcile in Mexico and Los Algunas, Puerto de Las Nubes

Still, the couple has had some good moments in New York. Their children, ages 20 and 21, who have been living in Peru for the past few years, were with their parents earlier this month. They took a bus to return to New York after crossing the Rio Grande. Now they’re all together in the same hotel that’s serving as a homeless shelter, where they feel safer. They were met at the park by NPR.

Villegas and Pineda dream about someday having jobs like the ones they left behind in Valencia, Venezuela, about two hours west of Caracas. Villegas was a soccer coach. The small soccer academy he owned shut down in 2016 because parents couldn’t afford the monthly fees. He also owned a convenience store at a bus station, and Pineda cooked in a restaurant.

After crossing the US- Mexico border, some migrants that haven’t turned themselves in are having a harder time finding shelter as the cold weather hits El Paso, Texas.

Moments before, the Nicaraguan mother of three children who is seven months pregnant, couldn’t stop her eyes from watering when the social worker burst into tears, apologizing for coming empty-handed.

Like the border’s way of life, the continuous arrival of migrants in El Paso is complex and even more so than in Juarez, Mexico. Hundreds of people are waiting to apply for asylum in the US on the north concrete banks of the Rio Grande. Venezuela’s migrants who were living in tents on the river’s south banks when Mexican officials dismantled their camp last month are hoping that they can do the same there someday. Numerous nonprofit and faith groups as well as governments on both sides of the border are scrambling because their shelters are quickly reaching capacity.

More than 2,500 people have arrived in El Paso each day in the past week, city officials said, warning that the number is expected to double after the federal policy is lifted.

“It’s something that we’re going to have to work with the UN and other countries to work through. He told reporters earlier this week that the situation is bigger than El Paso, and has now become bigger than the United States.

Misael Aguilera’s makeshift camp on El Paso bus stops in the light of a recent kidnapping spree

It is weighing heavily on this city, where officials and community organizations already say they are overwhelmed by a deadline to end the policy.

Las Americas Immigrant Advocacy Center, a local nonprofit that provides legal services to immigrants, has a responsibility to meet at this time.

The crisis requires us all to encourage our officials to do more and to take a stance in this regard. It’s not something that we can just turn away from, we don’t have that luxury. This is a real phenomenon that people in the US need to know about.

CNN spoke with people on both sides of the US-Mexico border about the harsh realities that migrant families have experienced since fleeing poverty as well as drug and gang violence in their home countries, and the role that some locals play in the humanitarian crisis.

Many migrants who waded into the Rio Grande’s knee-deep waters that divide the sister cities’ downtown areas, and were later taken into custody by federal authorities and processed, have been sleeping for days on El Paso streets. They’ve clustered in the vicinity of bus stations that sit less than half a mile away from the very spot where they reached US land.

For the past week, Misael Aguilera has waited outside the Greyhound station hoping to embark on the final 8-hour bus drive that will reunite him with his brother in Central Texas.

The 35-year-old spent more than two months traveling from Peru to El Paso, but he can’t afford his bus ticket yet. He was in the clothes he was wearing at the border.

“It was a horrible experience in Mexico, I will not be able to remember it, but hearing about kidnappings, seeing people dying, and being robbed is something that marked me for life, and it’s what I will never forget,” she said.

Aguilera, who used to work as a clinical nurse specialist in his native Cuba, keeps himself busy by keeping the makeshift camp outside the downtown bus station somewhat organized and clean. He and others collect larger blankets that people leave behind when they leave a bus, so that they can be saved for those that may arrive at any given time.

“We are trying to keep things tidy. Make sure the trash is being picked up and that the space is kept clean to create a safe environment.

Diaz Diaz, her family and their daughter’s family: a friend from the El Paso area who knows how to take care of his family

Others near the Greyhound station are Diaz, her family and her sister’s family. A total of 11 people, including adults and their toddler to teenage children, have been in El Paso for about a week, unable to afford bus tickets for each of them.

Afraid of getting separated, they spent most nights on the streets after shelters wouldn’t accept all of them or denied them entry for not having arranged travel out of El Paso. There have been countless times when Diaz’s husband Carlos Pavón Flores, can only hold their daughter Esther in his arms, in silence. He does not want to be out in the cold if nothing else.

The convenience store is near the edge of downtown El Paso. The building, sitting across the street from another bus station and two blocks from the Greyhound station, has become the first stop for many migrants looking for food and water after being released from Border Patrol custody.

And the 20-year-old, who used to spend his days solely cleaning and restocking shelves, might be the first El Paso resident who is not a government official that many migrants encounter.

Some people want to know if the store will exchange pesos for dollars if they sell phones so that they can call their family or if they will have access to a clean restroom. At times, the constant traffic could be hectic, Banda says, but he understands the precarious situation migrants are experiencing.

“I come from a modest background and my family has taught me to help in any way I can,” Banda said. They are very respectful. They are good people and better than some locals.

New record for the number of people staying at a Convention Center in El Paso, Mexico, after the arrival of a bus last year

Dozens of people are sleeping on a sidewalk next to a store. The number of people in the area has increased significantly in the past couple of months. Some have been sleeping there for nearly a week while others arrived no more than a day ago.

Because he often talks to his family about what his interactions are with the migrants, his mother has started collecting blankets to donate, and other acquaintances have begun to talk about how they can help.

Staff members from social workers, receptionists and maintenance workers rushed to pick up forms and pens for the 25 men after they were dropped off at a shelter in El Paso by a white bus.

190 people have been housed in the shelter this week, which is a new record since the center was established almost 29 years ago, Martin said. Martin said they didn’t want to say no to anyone.

A number of people working for nonprofits, religious groups, immigrant advocates, and other organizations have stepped up to assist migrants and are close to reaching their breaking point.

There is an emergency shelter in the convention center but it is only open to immigrants with immigration papers who have turned themselves into the Border Patrol. The federal government is helping to pay the bill for that policy, according to the city. And it’s leaving potentially hundreds of migrants out in the cold.

El Paso Crossings a Refugee Story: A Journey Through the Dusty Borders of Juarez, Honduras

“We may get 30 on their way and all of a sudden, I’ve got 50 that come in right behind them. We’re never going to be able to catch up at this rate,” Martin said.

As the days pass and the number of migrants continues increasing, Martin is unsure of the shelter’s future and says he worries they would have to make a decision that goes against the shelter’s very own mission.

“The Opportunity Center is going to come to a point, and I’m thinking it may be within the next day or two, where we simply don’t have physical space to handle them. And we’re going to have to say no.”

Shelters are quickly reaching capacity in Ciudad Juez due to more and more facilities opening up in recent months. The shelters serve as a point of convergence between people who have been temporarily living in this border city for months after seeking asylum in the US and being expelled into Mexico, and those who reached the border in the past weeks and are waiting for the end of Title 42 expulsions.

Ingrid Matamoros and her family have lived at Tierra de Oro church shelters in Juárez for nearly six months. In Honduras, she had found success selling used plus-size clothing while her husband operated a car shop — but gang violence, extortion and threats made them fear for their and their children’s lives, the 28-year-old mother says.

Matamoros has gone through phases of desperation and shame, and hopes that she can get to the US with the help of a sponsor.

Matamoros says, “You have to ask yourself why other people choose to cross and you are not, why other people choose to waste their time and chances when there are people like us who are at risk.”

Source: https://www.cnn.com/interactive/2022/12/us/el-paso-crossings-migrant-stories-reaj-cnnphotos/

El Paso Crossings a Migratory Story Reaj CCN Photo: Juan Manuel Matamoros, 30, lives in Juárez, Mexico

Families who traveled from other parts of Mexico, Guatemala and Ukraine spent the morning at the shelter arranging chairs, hanging up Christmas lights, and cooking food for a posada, a Mexican Christmas tradition that includes the re-enacting of Joseph and Mary’s search for a room in Bethlehem. Matamoros says it will make her two sons laugh and forget about their demoralizing journey.

I want this to end soon. I want a stable home for my children so they go to school, have a normal life, go to bed whenever they want and play or watch TV. I don’t want them to suffer anymore.

He put a metal tray containing doughnuts on the ground and took off his socks before picking them up again. In a matter of seconds, he managed to dip his feet in the freezing water and step on a series of rocks that led him to US land without dropping the tray.

He has been carrying pizza boxes and water bottles all over the place, even though he can’t go to the US because of his nationality.

The 30-year-old Venezuelan has been selling food and water to the migrants lining up close to the border wall in El Paso. Prior to October, the Biden administration applied title 42 to Venezuela even though they were previously exempt.

We have to wait and see what happens with us. In the meantime, we work on this side of the border to survive,” said Sanchez Mendez, who has been in Juárez for about a week waiting for the end of Title 42.

Source: https://www.cnn.com/interactive/2022/12/us/el-paso-crossings-migrant-stories-reaj-cnnphotos/

El Paso: El agua del mismo y la aproximaci’on de la recoltación en la regin del cio mayor de El

He spends most of his day walking down the line of people, his voice echoes as he yells “el agua, el agua se acaba” (the water, the water is running out) trying to sell the water bottles he and his friends bought together. It’s their way of making some money or as some Venezuelans say “buscar la moneda” to eat and one day continue their journey up North.

Lisba, who is Venezuelan and whose last name we are not using because she and her family slipped into the country without documents, says she’s afraid to seek shelter. “I’m scared because of all we’ve been through and that they’ll send us back,” she says in Spanish. Only people who turned themselves into the Border Patrol can sleep in the thousand cots at the convention center. The city says that’s a rule of the federal government, which is helping to cover the shelter’s costs.

“We wanted to make sure that we were able to get everyone who was on the street off the streets before this cold weather hits,” said Mario D’Agostino, the deputy city manager in El Paso.

The buses will pick up people at their location and bring them to the convention center so that we can free up space.

On Thursday, the sidewalk in front of the Greyhound bus station was lined with blankets as many migrants attempted to keep warm.

Migrants are asked to relocate to the emergency shelter in the convention center by the police officers on bicycle patrol. But many of the migrants who were still on the street had not turned themselves into the Border Patrol.

Mexican-American Border Patrol Agents are Unintentionally Detected in the “Darien Gap Jungle.” The U.S. Border Patrol is Under a State of Emergency

But in practice, those restrictions have been applied unevenly — in large part because Mexico has refused to take back migrants from certain countries, including Cuba and Nicaragua. Since recently they can be expelled to Mexico under the guise of Title 42.

“We chose not to join the border patrol because we didn’t want to go back to being deported after what we’ve already gone through,” said a woman named Gabriela. She and Jean-Carlos went undetected with their children.

She described their journey from South America to Panama where they were separated from one another in the dangerous and dangerous “Darien Gap jungle”.

The group arrived in Ciudad Jurez three days before the Texas National Guard descended upon the Rio Grande. They watched troops spill out of a parade of Humvees and uncoil reams of razor wire. The sight was unnerving, and Wilfor was a part of the group.

The group crossed Tuesday night despite that rumor. They picked a spot where there was an irrigation canal that was known for migrant deaths. They ran through a hole in a fence and then raced across six lanes of the highway at 60 miles per hour.

El Paso is in the midst of a declared state of emergency over thousands of migrants living in unsafe conditions, as a Trump-era border policy keeping migrants out of the US remains in flux amid court proceedings.

She said that the city needs to follow both state and federal policies to get shelter at government-run facilities.

If undocumented migrants show up at government-run sites, they’ll be connected with Customs and Border Protection to start the process of turning themselves in or are connected with shelters run by NGOs on the ground, she said.

Three men, who did not want to be identified, told CNN they have been expelled from the US multiple times in recent weeks and no longer want to turn themselves into border authorities because they have been refused legal entry so many times. The men say they crossed the Rio Grande and passed through border barriers without being detected by border agents.

“Extremely cold, below freezing temperatures are expected along the Mexico and United States border during the next several days,” Hugo Carmona, Acting Associate Chief of US Border Patrol Operations, said in a video statement. “Do not risk your life and that of your loved ones trying to cross the river or the desert. Help avoid human death and tragedy, stay home or remain in a safe shelter. This is a really important piece of information.

The El Paso Christmas Parade: Christmas in the Land of the Migrants and in the Shadows of the Pandemic Border. According to David Carrero

The deputy director of the Opportunity Center for the Homeless told CNN that he tried to get the convention center open to illegal immigrants for at least the next two days, but that was unsuccessful.

At nearby Sacred Heart Church, officials said their normal capacity is 130 but are expanding to 200 for the next four nights and are prioritizing women and children, they said. There are a lot of people outside the church.

Many of the migrants are not looking to stay in El Paso and the city’s infrastructure is struggling to cope with the influx, said Mario D’Agostino, the deputy city manager.

The airport is moderate-sized and there are a couple of smaller bus terminals, but it is not enough to keep up with holiday traffic, according to D’Agostino.

It feels as though it would be any other Christmas in El Paso. Families who live here stroll through the annual holiday display downtown where a 55-foot tree glitters with ornaments and hundreds of thousands of tiny lights are strung everywhere. People take photos near a depiction of the baby Jesus in the manger.

The inn was not big enough for Mary and Joseph. It’s what thousands of migrants who’ve recently crossed the U.S.-Mexico border now face — no place to sleep or stay.

Over the last few days, some churches have opened their doors to all migrants, regardless of their immigration status, bringing them in from the bitter cold. David Carrero, from Venezuela, has been spending nights at Sacred Heart Church with his wife and baby boy.

The local residents, including Adan Amezaga, his wife and two young daughters, have given out gallons of coffee and more than a thousand sandwiches to the migrants at the bus station.

While migrants had been hoping for the biggest Christmas gift of all, the lifting of pandemic border restrictions that would allow them to seek asylum in the United States, which did not happen, they are grateful for the kindness of strangers this holiday season.