One by one, each of those 40 passengers is leaving Union Stationthe centennial train and bus terminal of Washington D.C. They came from Texasat about 6:00 am on July 30, 2022. After several hours there is only a group of young men left (most of them no older than 25), who made friends along the way and barely stammer a “ Yes Yes”.
The journey of these new migrants, many of them Venezuelans “in search of American dream” stops at the united states capitalwho knows until when. For the night that night they only have two options: sleep on the street or in a city shelter for homeless people. They are not sure what the next step will be. But despite everything, they do not seem desperate. “We have gone through worse things to get to this country”, comments one of them on behalf of everyone.
Since April 2022, hundreds of migrants who have entered through unauthorized paths on the southern border have been sent to the capital of the United States and New York on the instructions of the Governors of Texas and Arizona. Many of the travelers are Venezuelans.
When they arrive they are greeted by volunteers from the humanitarian organizations Samu and Humanitarian Action. “Welcome to Washington DC” they say in Spanish and in some cases this greeting has a Venezuelan accent.
There are three families with young children, young women, a 52-year-old man, and about ten boys. They all come from an immigration processing center in Texas, where some stayed a few hours and others several days.
The journey to Washington DC, they calculate, took about 32 hours. At 10:00 am they have already had a drink of water, eaten a light sandwich and changed their clothes. By midday, almost everyone has a place to spend the night: the families have been taken in by charity agencies; those who have relatives or friends in other cities have received a bus ticket (and the rarest a plane ticket) to continue their route.
But, the boys and the “pure”, as they call Orlando, the 52-year-old man, do not know what will happen to them.
Each one carries a transparent bag that contains another change of clothes and a yellow manila envelope, where they keep, like the most precious treasure, the documentation that accredits them as persons in search of international protection, without this meaning status of refugee or asylee issued by the US authorities.
The regularization of these new Venezuelan migrants is a process that can take several months. Some, like Orlando, have a cell phone that will ring every day, between 12:00 and 2:00 pm. The migrant person must respond with a photograph and upload it to an application that is only activated after the call. It is a monitoring of the immigration authorities.
Samu and Humanitarian Action are providing “first response” care that consists of seeing their general conditions, helping them buy tickets to continue their journey, calling relatives or acquaintances, feeding them, providing them with a hygiene kit, clean clothes, helping them to locate a place to spend that first night and speak to them in Spanish, in the case of Latinos.
All the Venezuelans in this group passed through the Darién, the jungle that joins Colombia and Panama. Some took a month to reach the United States and others up to three months.
“You’re going to cry”
While they wait, the Venezuelan boys sit together at a table. Arnaldo ponders while waiting for a friend in Indianapolis to agree to receive him. Yerfrenk trusts get to new yorkalthough no one expects it there. Martín takes photos, laughs and jokes euphorically because his friend Yamilet is going to receive him. Manuel has a look where his heart seems to be pounding: he’s worried that his friend in Greenville, North Carolina still isn’t responding to his messages and assumes that he’s busy working. The “morochos”, a pair of twin brothers, look at each other and admit that they have no relatives or friends to welcome them. Israel listens with interest to the plans of her friends; his depends on an acquaintance providing him with a home in Cincinnati, Ohio.
Orlando stays away from the different groups that have been arming themselves. The boys already nicknamed him the purebecause it is greater than all of them.
He is a man of slim build. His lively eyes move as if scanning the environment. While I’m talking to him, he blurts out: “Well, if I don’t get shelter, I’ll stay at your house,” perhaps appealing to his idea of solidarity among Venezuelans abroad.
Hastily, he tells that he was a policeman in Venezuela, of the Disciple, until 2006; that he spent time detained in El Helicoide, from where, he assures, he escaped; and that he went to Colombia, returned to Venezuela in 2018 to sign some documents to transfer his apartment to his daughter, and left the country again “because they had him specified.” He seems accustomed to recounting the incident.
The reason why Orlando decided to try his luck in the United States is because Gustavo Petro won in Colombia. “And I already know where that is going,” he says.
-If I tell you, you’re going to cry, warn about his passage through the Darién Gap.
– Tell me!
Unlike the boys, Orlando only made friends with a Nigerian during his trek through the jungle. He met him in Necoclí, the Colombian town where many start the route whose high risk varies depending on the payment they make: 50 dollars for the long route or 300 for another that will save them about five days on the road.
“He was the only person I shared with,” he says. At that moment her gaze fades.
“He was traveling with his wife and two children. I helped him with one of the kids when he had to go up the hill of death”. Orlando gestures as he counts and names points in the jungle as if they were already in the public domain.
“While we were going up, his wife slipped and broke her neck. He finished loading one of his children and I the other. Upon reaching the top he asked me to put up with the kids. He went down to get the body of his wife, put it on his back and went up… ”Orlando opens his arms and shows how his friend lifted his wife’s body and put it around her shoulders, so that it would not fall.
“Upon reaching the top, he looked for a place to lay it down. Innocent, the children thought that the woman was asleep and lay down next to her, each on one side of her, and asked their father when he was going to wake up.
Orlando can’t find the voice to go on. He rubs his arms like someone who feels chills. However, he recovers and continues: “He carried her a little longer until we reached a point. We stopped to rest and there he made a grave to bury her. While he was on the journey to get to the Panama post, he turned around and told me in Spanish: “Friend, I’m leaving my wife. I am leaving my wife.”
The Nigerian and Orlando lost contact once they arrived at the immigration post in Panama.
“I have seen hard things; but that is one that I am not going to forget, ”he says as if he were sharing a duel.
“Where are we going to sleep?”
At about 1:00 pm, some of the young people still waiting at Union Station help load the boxes that arrive with lunches donated by the Spanish chef Jose Andreswho has become famous for his humanitarian work in various countries around the world, reaching as far as war-torn Ukraine.
A boy sleeps between several chairs, while his little sister runs around. His parents watch over them. They have been taken in by a Catholic church shelter. They wait for them to come looking for them.
A man approached the volunteers and asked what he could do to support them. Orlando, who has remained vigilant, tells him that he must travel to New York but that he has no money.
That benevolent “angel” from Orlando, who dresses in cycling gear, agrees to buy him the bus ticket (which costs about $30) and gives him another $50 “for any eventuality.” He walks away to cheers. In truth, the “miracle” of an on-site donor is not that common.
Of the boys there are only five left: Arnaldo, Israel, Manuel and the dark-haired Víctor and Carlos. His tours have been varied. Three have been living in Colombiathe twins between Peru and Ecuador. They left Venezuela in 2018.
Of those who have followed his journey, Martín lived in El Cementerio, in the Los Alpes sector, Yofrek, 22, left La Guaira where he lived with his grandmother. He says that he has nowhere to go, but, suddenly, he leaves with two others on a bus to New York.
The Venezuelan Marisela Castillo Apitz, director of the NGO Humanitarian Action, one of the organizations that assists migrants in transit, comments that the situation of young men can be very pressing, since the resources to help migrants who arrive in Washington DC are scarce and women and families with minors receive priority attention.
“This has caused the profile of migrants who stay in Washington DC to be young men, Venezuelans, traveling alone. Some do not have sponsors, family or friends”, says Castillo Apitz.
Just past noon an incident shakes the atmosphere. Two men have gotten into a fist fight. The boys watch the fray in amazement, while debating whether or not to separate them. Better the latter, for security reasons. The volunteers are about to leave Union Station and the group of five still has nowhere to sleep. They have to go to a shelter in the city where they receive homeless men. Arriving there, they must wait until 4:30 pm to be assigned one of the 72 beds.
At the back of the refuge there is a rustic wooden pergola, with benches where they shelter from the sun. The five gather in a corner as other men arrive, some of them homeless. An athletic-looking young man in his 30s speaks to them in Spanish with an English accent. He wants to know who they are, what they are doing there. The boys joke with “yes, yes”. The man smiles, lights a marijuana cigarette and asks if the smoke bothers me. He has a little pitbull puppy that starts to play with the kids.
At this moment, the dark-haired men, Israel, Manuel and Arnaldo look at each other doubtfully. Manuel is still waiting for his friend who then buys him a plane ticket. Arnaldo insists with his friend from Indianapolis. At the end of that night they will be on their way. The morochos and Israel have stayed in the shelter. They made room that night. They also found other Venezuelans who have arrived since the beginning of July.
I see them again two weeks later. They have done some building trades. They make plans to rent a space of their own. One comments that he has already sent $200 to his sister who is in Lima. No one knows for sure what they are going to do yet. They think they are going to stay in Washington DC, just like others who have come to this haven.
This is the beginning of the series «From Darien to Washington DC: the journey of the new Venezuelan migrants«.