In a metro Atlanta hotel room on a recent Thursday, a Venezuelan child was learning to pronounce the English alphabet. It was hard work, but the eight-year-old boy had recently faced down more daunting challenges.
Last fall, the boy had trudged through the Darién Gap, a treacherous jungle connecting Colombia and Panama, which despite its perils is seeing record numbers of migrants headed north to the U.S. Alongside six of his family members, the eight-year-old walked for 11 hours every day for roughly a week, from 6 a.m. to 5 p.m., to avoid the added dangers of the dark. He never asked to be picked up.
“It was mental,” he said with pride.
“Strength doesn’t come from here,” he noted, pointing to his flexed bicep, “but from here” – his head. “My dad kept telling me we could do it.
Credit: Ben Gray
Credit: Ben Gray
The boy and his family are part of an influx of migrants that is overwhelming border authorities and straining cities nationwide, including hot spots like New York City and Chicago, where local leaders say their communities have reached a breaking point. The politically consequential migration surge is also being felt in Atlanta, even as the city has no formal mechanism and scant resources to aid destitute newcomers. Here, the onus is on just a handful of nonprofits to find creative solutions and keep migrants off the streets.
According to Gabriela, the eight-year-old’s mother, the family decided to buy bus tickets to come to Atlanta after crossing the border in March because they had heard that many of their compatriots had headed to cities further north. Their group was made up of extended family and tallied seven people in total, including a five-year-old. They figured there might be more opportunity to be found in a place with fewer fellow migrants competing for resources and jobs. The adults in the family asked to only be identified with a first name to avoid jeopardizing their immigration cases.
Credit: Ben Gray
Credit: Ben Gray
Having nowhere to go when they arrived to Atlanta on April 4, the migrant family spent their first night in the city sleeping in the Greyhound bus station downtown.
Credit: Courtesy
Credit: Courtesy
That night marked the end of a months-long journey that included days without food, hundreds of miles walked, and countless nights spent sleeping on the side of roads in Central America and Mexico. The trip to the U.S. drained the family’s hard-earned savings – spent on the services of “coyotes,” or local guides – and exposed them to harrowing scenes. In the Darién, where wild animals, smugglers, and criminal groups coalesce, the family spotted several dead bodies.
“People die in the attempt,” said Yoselin, who like Gabriela is also a young mother. Yoselin’s daughter is five years old. Yoselin and Gabriela’s husbands are cousins.
‘Everyone is scared of Trump’
The Venezuelan migrants planned their trip north for months, putting away as much money as possible to cover the expenses they knew would come up during the journey. Passing through the Darién Gap alone set the family back $350 per person, paid to coyotes. The guides took the family on a ferry ride to the entrance of the Darién and led the family and other migrants partway through the jungle. Then, they instructed the migrants to follow a blazed trail. Later, police and border officials across Central America and in Mexico also requested bribes to secure safe passage.
Credit: Courtesy
Carlos, Gabriela’s husband, said it was important for the family to make it onto U.S. soil before November, when voters could give former President Donald Trump, an immigration hawk, a second term.
“The goal of a lot of the people who are coming is to get here before the election,” he said. “They are worried about the election. Everyone is scared of Trump. The fear of every migrant, right now, is Trump.”
After emerging from the jungle, the family made their way up to Mexico by taking buses when they could, and walking from village to village when they couldn’t. They carried a tent to spend the night.
Credit: Courtesy
Credit: Courtesy
A month later, in October, they arrived to Mexico City, where they were able to find spots in a shelter. Then, the waiting started.
When they cross the U.S.-Mexico border illegally, migrants are subject to detention and deportation. Many are also ineligible to apply for asylum, as laid out by a Biden administration regulation.
There’s an alternative. People located in central and northern Mexico can request to legally enter the U.S. via a smartphone app dubbed CBP One. After being vetted by border authorities at an official port of entry, migrants with CBP One appointments are granted humanitarian parole, which allows them to live in the country without fear of deportation for a period of up to two years. They also receive a notice to appear in immigration court, where they can ask for asylum – the start of a process that typically takes years to reach its conclusion.
Open only to migrants physically present in central and northern Mexico, CBP One appointments are hard to come by, due to outsized demand. It took the Venezuelan family five months of checking the app daily to secure an appointment in March.
Many don’t know about the CBP One process, or are unwilling to wait. In December, border officials encountered over 300,000 migrants, an all-time monthly high, according to government data. Of these, roughly 50,000 came in via the appointment system, while the rest crossed the border illegally. Illegal border crossings have surged since Biden assumed the presidency, averaging 2 million per year since 2021.
After rousing from their night spent at the downtown Atlanta bus station, some of the family members left the station to try to get assistance. They chanced upon a private citizen who was moved by their story and offered to help, booking them a couple of nights’ stay at an area hotel.
“We truly have no idea what would have become of us if we hadn’t met her,” Yoselin said.
The migrants and their benefactor called area shelters to inquire about their availability but were repeatedly told there were no free beds.
“We don’t need much,” Yoselin said. “We just want to get some stability somewhere to go out and look for work … Just a roof is all we need help with. It doesn’t matter if the mattress is used; it doesn’t matter if the sheets are used.”
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution connected the Venezuelan family with the Latin American Association, a Buford Highway-based nonprofit that aids metro Atlanta immigrants.
The LAA has been able to provide newly arrived migrants with free month-long hotel stays while they find their feet in Atlanta. It’s a service that is funded through a nearly $7 million grant received by the city from FEMA last year to help meet migrants’ humanitarian needs. LAA staff expressed hesitation that the hospitality program will be able to run for much longer – Congress is cutting back some of the FEMA funding this year – but Gabriela, Yoselin, and the rest of the family were able to get settled in their new hotel on April 11.
Credit: Ben Gray
Credit: Ben Gray
Their focus has now turned to job-seeking.
A benefit of entering the country via the smartphone app is that migrants are immediately eligible for a work permit. But the filing fee for a work permit application increased this month to over $500. Plus, the Venezuelan migrants think they will need to hire the services of a lawyer to file their applications, which will bring up the cost of the permits even further. They say they have no choice but to seek work under-the-table while they save enough cash to be able to work legally.
“We’re happy to do whatever,” Yoselin said. “We are willing to clean houses, clean hotels. We can even sweep the streets.”
The Venezuelan family doesn’t have to report to immigration court – where they plan to apply for asylum – until July 2025.
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