Weary of Venezuela’s autocratic government and the pittance he earned in the military, Dario Maldonado deserted and fled with his family to neighboring Colombia.
By AP News – Bobby Caina Calvan and Ashraf Khalil
Aug 22, 2022
But life remained hard – money was tight and expenses mounted. So he set off for the United States, an odyssey that required him to travel by foot through Central American jungle infested with venomous snakes and gun-toting bandits, sometimes sidestepping the corpses of people who died on the same journey.
Now Maldonado and thousands of other asylum seekers from across Latin America and the Caribbean are caught in the political battle over U.S. immigration policy after two Republican governors started sending busloads of migrants to New York City and Washington.
Border cities such as San Diego have long wrestled with influxes of asylum-seekers and created well-oiled machines to respond, but the nation’s largest city and its capital were caught flat-footed. That created an opening for Greg Abbott of Texas and Doug Ducey of Arizona to exploit what they consider failed Democratic leadership.
Nearly 8,000 migrants have arrived on the state-sponsored bus trips, straining the resources and humanitarian services of both cities, which have also sought assistance from the federal government.
“This can be chaotic. But we want to send a message: We’re here to help, and we want to put politics aside,” said New York City’s immigration commissioner, Manuel Castro, as he greeted arriving migrants on a recent morning.
Abbott started the practice in April with Washington, and Doug Ducey followed suit in May. Abbott also recently began sending buses to New York.
For migrants, the politics are only dimly understood – and far less relevant than finding temporary shelter, jobs and a long-term home in América.
“I have heard that the Texas governor is anti-immigrant,” Maldonado said outside a New York shelter. “It is like a war between the party of the governor of Texas and the party of Biden.”
A voluntary consent form for free transportation from Texas tells migrants that Washington is where the president and members of Congress “are more immediately able to help address the needs of migrants.”
Migrants who sign a consent form for a free trip to New York are told that the city has designated itself a “sanctuary” for migrants, who are provided with food and shelter.
U.S. authorities stopped migrants 1.43 million times at the Mexican border from January through July, up 28% from the same period last year. Many are released on humanitarian parole or with notices to appear in immigration court.
The sight of both cities scrambling to cope with the influx drew undisguised schadenfreude from Abbott, who called New York City “the ideal destination for these migrants, who can receive the abundance of city services and housing that Mayor Eric Adams has boasted about within the sanctuary city.”
In both cities, social service charities and churches have mobilized to support new arrivals, offering temporary shelter, medical attention and often a ticket to their next destination as they await a date in immigration court.
“Many are fleeing persecution and other very severe circumstances. They’re confused. And we want to make sure that we support them as much as possible and make sure that they’re not being used as political pawns,” Castro said.
On a recent August day, a bus of 41 migrants from Arizona arrived at a church in Washington’s Capitol Hill neighborhood, where they were greeted by workers from SAMU First Response, an international relief agency.
Within minutes the group was enjoying a hot meal inside the church and filling out arrival forms.
Texas buses arrive haphazardly, said Tatiana Laborde, the agency’s managing director. They only hear from charitable groups that a bus carrying a certain number of people has departed. At some point about 48 hours later, that bus drops off riders at Washington’s Union Station.
Arizona provides detailed manifests of passengers and their nationalities, coordination on arrival times and has medical personnel aboard each bus.
“They don’t want to just dump people here,” Laborde said.
Many of those who arrive in Washington don’t stay long. Mayor Muriel Bowser, in her second request for National Guard support, told Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin that most migrants stay up to three days before moving on to their final destinations.
“They don’t know much about D.C. other than the president is here,” Laborde said.
The Pentagon on Monday denied the mayor’s request for help, saying the use of the National Guard would be inappropriate and would hurt the overall readiness of the troops by forcing some to cancel or disrupt military training.
Kelin Enríquez, another Venezuelan, was among them. She and and her children first arrived in Washington and later found themselves at a family center in the Bronx to plan the family’s next steps.
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Read More: AP News – Asylum seekers caught in political battle in NYC, Washington
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