The Migrant Crisis is So Overwhelming. What Can One Person Possibly Do to Help?
Donate to this GoFundMe and Help a Young Asylum-Seeking Couple from Venezuela Achieve Their American Dream
Forced migration is a global problem. According to the United Nations, by the end of 2022 more than 100 million people had been forced to flee their homes, as a result of persecution, conflict, violence, human rights abuses or events seriously disturbing public order. Economic and political collapse, climate change and of course war all play a role in compelling people to leave their homes in search of safety and security. A case in point is Venezuela, a country of less than 30 million people which alone has seen more than 7 million people leave in recent years in search of protection and safety.
As a lawyer and advocate for immigrants’ rights, and as the Executive Producer of a documentary – Las Abogadas: Attorneys on the Front Lines of the Migrant Crisis – that has tugged at the heartstrings of all who have seen it, people often ask me what they could possibly do to help in the face of such a massive problem.
The answer is simple: you can help one person, or one family, or one community.
I have created a GoFundMe in an attempt to raise some money to help a young immigrant couple from Venezuela who are in desperate straits, unable to work legally in the United States while they go through the process of applying for asylum. Want to do something concrete to help? Read on, and if you are moved by their story, then please donate whatever amount you can. Every dollar helps.
Around Christmastime in 2022, I did some remote pro bono work, helping migrants at the U.S.-Mexico border secure humanitarian exemptions that would allow them to enter the United States at a time when the border was effectively closed thanks to Title 42 (a public health law the Trump administration imposed at the height of the COVID-19 pandemic to close the border, and which continued well into the Biden administration).
Two such people were Gabriela and Andrés (not their real names), a young couple from Venezuela. They had fled Venezuela months earlier, escaping social unrest, political instability and a collapsing economy that no longer provided them with any way to support themselves. They were in love, and they had big dreams, and having literally nothing to lose, they decided to set off for the United States – that beacon of hope that so many migrants worldwide still believe will offer them refuge.
To get to the U.S.-Mexico border, Gabriela and Andrés drove from Venezuela to Colombia. Then they walked for six days through the mud and jungle of the treacherous Darien Gap, running out of food the last two days. Then they made their way – sometimes walking, sometimes taking buses – through Panama, Costa Rica, Nicaragua, Honduras and Guatemala until they got to Mexico. Traversing Mexico was its own journey, and they joined a caravan of other migrants to travel from the Guatemalan border in the south to the U.S. border in the north. The entire trip covered approximately 8,000 kilometers (about 5,000 miles) and took more than five months.
They made it to Matamoros, a dangerous, cartel-controlled city on the Mexican side of the border, right across from Brownsville, Texas. Gabriela and Andrés wanted to do everything the “right” away: not climb a wall, or ford a river, but present themselves at the official border crossing and ask for asylum. But before they could do that, the cartel did what the cartel does.
Trafficking and otherwise exploiting human beings turns out to be a lot easier than smuggling drugs, so Mexican cartels are now in the business of targeting vulnerable migrants and holding them for ransom. Victims are forced to contact family members and beg them to pay the ransom, on the threat of death if the families don't pay up. But nobody in their families in Venezuela was able to help, and Gabriela and Andrés were penniless. Gabriela told their kidnappers that she was four months pregnant, but they didn’t believe her. Both Gabriela and Andrés were beaten and mistreated in numerous ways. Gabriela eventually developed a fever, and the kidnappers gave up and let them go once they saw that she was in medical distress. But she suffered a miscarriage, and Gabriela and Andrés tragically lost the baby they were so hoping to bring into a better world than the one they had left behind.
When migrants arrive in these Mexican cities near the border, they’re the targets of a vicious criminal business that kidnaps them and can torture them for weeks, extorting thousands of dollars of ransom from their relatives over the phone. Those who are kidnapped know that if they don’t pay, the outstanding balances can end in death.
Says Andrés: “Thank God after several days sleeping on the street, God gave us an angel – a couple who gave us a place to stay for a few days – after we had spent several days suffering from hunger and the cold. We stayed in a small house of theirs that did not have much security, but because of all that we had suffered we were grateful for the help.”
According to Gabriela: “Unfortunately, after a few days two men smashed a window and broke into the house, threatening to kill us with machetes, and stole everything we had (including 100 U.S. dollars that a kind stranger had given us – it was all the money we had), including our cell phone with the number we had registered in Matamoros.”
With this background, and with the help of a nonprofit organization that submitted their exemption application for them, the U.S. officials at the border crossing in Brownsville, Texas permitted Gabriela and Andrés to legally enter the United States. But that’s not where the story ends. In many ways, it was just the beginning.
They were now faced with having to find a place to live, figure out a way to earn some money to keep themselves fed and housed, and find a trustworthy lawyer who would help them apply for asylum. That’s right, just because a person who says they want asylum is allowed to enter the United States legally doesn’t mean they have thereby applied for asylum or some other form of long-term immigration status. That is another hurdle, and while struggling to find their way in a sprawling Texas city with little public transportation, they also had to figure out how to find a lawyer and how to apply for asylum.
They are not eligible to even apply for legal work authorization until the asylum application (which has not yet been filed) has been pending for at least 150 days. In the meantime, they’ve been doing what they can to survive. Members of a church affiliated with their church back in Venezuela helped them find housing. Gabriela has been cleaning houses, and Andrés has become an itinerant barber, bringing his barber’s tools to people’s houses where he cuts their hair.
Housing, food, transportation, legal fees, cleaning and barber supplies, and more … these things all cost money – more than Gabriela and Andrés can make in the informal economy. Their families back in Venezuela are experiencing increasing economic distress, and are hoping that Gabriela and Andrés can start sending them remittances, but it will be a long time before they can secure legal jobs and earn enough money to have anything to spare.
. . .
In the touching words of British-Somali poet Warsan Shire, “no one leaves home unless home won’t let you stay.”
And by the way, Gabriela and Andrés went through all of this at the tender ages of 19 and 20.
If the story of Gabriela and Andrés has moved you in any way, please consider contributing to the GoFundMe, where I have posted a truncated version of the story I tell above. I am managing the GoFundMe for them, but all of the money received (minus the GoFundMe platform’s fees) will go directly to Gabriela and Andrés.
Want to know how you can help? This is how you can help.
Donate to the GoFundMe HERE.
So moving and compelling. Thank you for sharing this story. We will donate. I will also share this story