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A26 u.s. news
Diamars 29 Juni 2021

Driven by pandemic, Venezuelans uproot again to come to US

U.S. government data shows shift camps run by cartels on cane on the riverbank.
that 42% of all families en- their way north, most Ven-
countered along the border ezuelans reach the U.S. in as Once in the U.S., Venezu-
in May hailed from places little as four days. elans tend to fare better than
other than Mexico, El Salva- other groups. In March,
dor, Guatemala and Hondu- “This is a journey they’re Biden granted Temporary
ras — the traditional drivers definitely prepared for from Protected Status to an esti-
of migratory trends. That a financial standpoint,” said mated 320,000 Venezuelans.
compares with just 8% dur- Tiffany Burrow, who runs the The designation allows peo-
ing the last sharp increase Val Verde Border Humanitar- ple coming from countries
in migration in 2019. The ian Coalition’s shelter in Del ravaged by war or disaster to
Border Patrol recorded more Rio, where migrants can eat, work legally in the U.S. and
than 180,000 encounters in clean up and buy bus tickets gives protection from depor-
May, a two-decade high that to Miami, Houston and oth- tation.
includes migrants’ repeated er cities with large Venezu-
attempts to cross. elan communities. While new arrivals don’t
qualify, Venezuelans request-
Compared with other mi- They first fly to Mexico City ing asylum — as almost all
(AP) — Marianela Rojas grants, Venezuelans garner or Cancun, where foreign do — tend to succeed, partly
huddles in prayer with her “It’s over, it’s all over,” she certain privileges — a reflec- visitors are down sharply but because the U.S. govern-
fellow migrants, a tear- said into the phone recently, tion of their firmer financial nearly 45,000 Venezuelans ar- ment corroborates reports
ful respite after trudg- crying as her toddler grand- standing, higher education rived in the first four months of political repression. Only
ing across a slow-flowing son appeared shirtless on levels and U.S. policies that of 2021. Smugglers promot- 26% of asylum requests from
stretch of the Rio Grande screen. “Everything was per- have failed to remove Madu- ing themselves as “travel Venezuelans have been de-
and nearly collapsing onto fect. I didn’t stop moving for ro but nonetheless made de- agencies” have cropped up on nied this year, compared with
someone’s backyard lawn, one second.” portation all but impossible. Facebook, claiming to offer an 80% rejection rate for
where, seconds before, she hassle-free transport to the asylum-seekers from poorer,
stepped on American soil Last month, 7,484 Venezu- The vast majority enter the U.S. in exchange for about violence-plagued countries
for the first time. elans were encountered by U.S. near Del Rio, a town of $3,000. in Central America, accord-
Border Patrol agents along 35,000 people, and they don’t ing to Syracuse University’s
“I won’t say it again,” inter- the U.S.-Mexico border — try to evade detention but “We’re doing things the way Transactional Records Access
rupts a U.S. Border Patrol more than all 14 years for rather turn themselves in to they do things here — under Clearinghouse.
agent, giving orders in Span- which records exist. Border Patrol agents to seek the table,” a smuggler said
ish for Rojas and a dozen oth- asylum. in a voice message a migrant “I can write their asylum re-
ers to get into an idling de- The surprise increase has shared with the AP. “You’ll quests almost by heart,” said
tention van. “Only passports drawn comparisons to the Like many of the dozens of never be alone. Someone will Jodi Goodwin, an immigra-
and money in your hands. midcentury influx of Cu- Venezuelans The Associated always be with you.” tion attorney in Harlingen,
Everything else — earrings, bans fleeing Fidel Castro’s Press spoke to this month in Texas, who has represented
chains, rings, watches — in communist rule. It’s also a Del Rio, 27-year-old Lis Bri- The steep price includes a over 100 Venezuelans. “These
your backpacks. Hats and harbinger of a new type of ceno had already migrated guided sendoff from Ciu- are higher-educated people
shoelaces too.” migration that has caught once before. After graduating dad Acuna, where the bulk who can advocate for them-
the Biden administration off with a degree in petroleum of Venezuelans cross the Rio selves and tell their story in
It’s a frequent scene across guard: pandemic refugees. engineering, she couldn’t get Grande. The hardscrabble a chronological, clean way
the U.S.-Mexico border at hired in the oil fields near town a few hundred wet steps that judges are accustomed to
a time of swelling migra- Many of the nearly 17,306 her hometown of Maracaibo from Del Rio is attractive to thinking.”
tion. But these aren’t farmers Venezuelans who have without declaring her loy- both smugglers and migrants
and low-wage workers from crossed the southern border alty to Venezuela’s socialist with deeper pockets because Even Venezuelans facing de-
Mexico or Central America, illegally since January had leadership. So she moved to it had been largely spared the portation have hope. The
who make up the bulk of been living for years in other Chile a few years ago, find- violence seen elsewhere on Trump administration broke
those crossing. They’re bank- South American countries, ing work with a technology the border. diplomatic relations with
ers, doctors and engineers part of an exodus of nearly company. Maduro when it recognized
from Venezuela, and they’re 6 million Venezuelans since “If you’re a smuggler in the Juan Guaidó as Venezuela’s
arriving in record numbers as President Nicolás Maduro But as anti-government un- business of moving a com- rightful leader in 2019. Air
they flee turmoil in the coun- took power in 2013. rest and the pandemic tanked modity — because that’s travel is suspended, even
try with the world’s largest Chile’s economy, sales how they view money, guns, charter flights, making re-
oil reserves and pandemic- While some are government plunged and her company people, drugs and everything moval next to impossible.
induced pain across South opponents fearing harass- shuttered. they move, as a product —
America. ment and jailing, the vast then you want to move it Meanwhile, as the migrants
majority are escaping long- Briceno sold what she could through the safest area pos- leave Del Rio to reconnect
Two days after Rojas crossed, running economic devasta- — a refrigerator, a telephone, sible charging the highest with loved ones in the U.S.,
she left detention and rushed tion marked by blackouts and her bed — to raise the $4,000 price,” said Austin L. Skero they are confident that with
to catch a bus out of the shortages of food and medi- needed for her journey to the II, chief of the U.S. Border sacrifice and hard work,
Texas town of Del Rio. Be- cine. U.S. She filled a backpack Patrol’s Del Rio sector. they’ll get an opportunity de-
tween phone calls to loved and set out with a heart lock nied them back home.
ones who didn’t know where With the pandemic still rag- amulet she got from a friend But the number of smugglers
she was, the 54-year-old re- ing in many parts of South to ward off evil spirits. caught with weapons has re- Briceno said that if she had
counted fleeing hardship in America, they have had to cently increased in the area, stayed in Venezuela, she
Venezuela a few years ago, relocate again. Increasingly, “I always thought I’d come and agents who normally would earn the equivalent
leaving a paid-off home and they’re being joined at the here on vacation, to visit the hunt down criminals are tied of $50 a month — barely
once-solid career as an el- U.S. border by people from places you see in the mov- up processing migrants. enough to scrape by.
ementary school teacher for a the countries they initially ies,” Briceno said. “But doing
fresh start in Ecuador. fled to — even larger num- this? Never.” The uptick in migrants cross- “The truth is,” says Briceno,
bers of Ecuadorians and Bra- ing is “purely a diversion hustling to catch a bus to
But when the little work she zilians have arrived this year While Central Americans tactic used by the cartels” to Houston where her boy-
found cleaning houses dried — as well as far-flung nations and others can spend months carry out crime, Skero said friend landed a well-paying
up, she decided to uproot hit hard by the virus, like In- trekking through the jun- as a group of Haitians carry- oil industry job, “it’s better to
again — this time without dia and Uzbekistan. gle, stowing away on freight ing young children emerged wash toilets here than being
her children. trains and sleeping in make- from a thicket of tall carrizo an engineer over there.”