“Good evening. Just landed in Miami from Tachira. Don’t know anything. I would be grateful for any help finding a job or a place to stay. Thank you.”
The first quarter of 2016 saw a spike in Venezuelan applications for asylum in the United States, a number on the rise since 2014. In February, U.S. Citizen and Immigration Services (USCIS) statistics showed Venezuela in first place with 1,142 applications – 13 more than China, which historically led the list.
At least nine WhatsApp groups keep newly arrived Venezuelan immigrants in Miami informed through text message, photos, audio and promotions. Most have 256 members, the maximum allowed, and members often switch between groups, making room for more recent arrivals. Some belong to more than one group, desperate not to miss an important detail.
Since last August, a new group has been born each month: Venezuelans in Miami, Venezuelans in Miami 2, We’re all Venezuelan, Venezuelans in the USA, Venezuelans united 1, I am Venezuelan, and Venezuelans in Betel and Venezuelans in Betel 2 (a reference to the “house of God”).
Marta López belongs to the Venezuelans United group. She’s especially worried about the latest wave of immigrants.
Getting asylum isn’t easy. Asylum-seekers must apply within a year of arriving to the United States, providing proof that they face persecution in their home country. It can take two years or more just to get a first interview with immigration authorities. If the immigration officer doesn’t accept the asylum application, it will go to immigration court – meaning the applicant risks getting deported.
“I’ve done work here that I never imagined I’d do, but at least I have quality of life.”
My family was never upper class. Many years ago we were middle class, but that’s over. I was in my last year of high school and I was thinking about studying mechanical engineering at the Universidad Central de Venezuela. But in 2014, when I graduated, things got really bad. I felt we lost our quality of life. Studying anything at university made no sense.
I joined the student protests like everyone else, on the streets, near my school (about 20 minutes away by car). I saw the repression. The police and the military did horrible things. I saw them beat up a woman. It was a war.
I’ve done work here that I never imagined I’d do. The hardest was the flower company, where I carried boxes before dawn. The boxes weigh 30 to 45 pounds. After carrying over a thousand pounds in a single day you can’t even feel your hands.
One time I worked 14 hours straight. You have to clean the warehouse, separate the old boxes and arrange the new ones so everything fits. They pay you $8 an hour. It comes to about $80 per day after taxes.
USCIS figures show that 3,507 Venezuelans sought asylum in January, February and March of this year. That’s more than the 855 reported for all of 2013 and the 2,939 for 2014.
2014
2015
2016
1,500
China
Venezuela
Mexico
Guatemala
900
El Salvador
Honduras
Ecuador
300
India
Haiti
Ukraine
0
Feb
Jun
Dec
Jun
Dec
Mar
2014
2015
2016
1,500
China
Venezuela
Mexico
Guatemala
900
El Salvador
Honduras
Ecuador
India
300
Haiti
Ukraine
0
Feb
Jun
Dec
Jun
Dec
Mar
2014
2015
2016
1,500
China
Venezuela
Mexico
Guatemala
900
El Salvador
Honduras
Ecuador
India
300
Haiti
Ukraine
0
Feb
Jun
Dec
Jun
Dec
Mar
2014
2015
2016
1,500
China
Venezuela
Mexico
Guatemala
900
El Salvador
Honduras
Ecuador
India
300
Haiti
Ukraine
0
Feb
Jun
Dec
Jun
Dec
Mar
Is there a pediatrician in the group? Do you know of any work for me? Is $5 an hour good pay? Any good asylum lawyers? Where are they handing out free food this weekend?
Some chat groups focus on medical services. Some are more active than others. All share the hours and addresses for local food handouts, and all are safe havens where Venezuelans can post their fears and search for friendship and assistance.
Free food
Helena arrived by car with two Venezuelan friends at 2:00 a.m., to wait in line for food donations. The three of them will take loaded bags back to their families. They know about the weekend’s food handouts thanks to WhatsApp.
“The day men with rifles started firing at the pool where my children were, that’s when I decided I had to leave the country.”
Even though we arrived in Miami more than three months ago, my children (seven and four years old) still wake up at night shouting, ‘The men with guns are coming!’ The incident we experienced in Venezuela was the trigger that made us say, ‘We’re moving to another country.’
Our situation was unsustainable. I had worked as a dentist in health ministry clinics starting in 2007 with a salary of about $17 per month. A year later, I was given a permanent job at a horrible political ceremony headed by Hugo Chavez at the Teresa Carreño Theater. I was forced to join the marches supporting the government, marking attendance at the beginning and end of those endless events.
I had to ration the anesthetics for my patients. I had only 12 small capsules of anesthetics per week, and in one day I could perform 12 extractions. One patient may need three capsules for one extraction. It was a nightmare.
We’re going to ask for asylum. My husband works unloading boxes that weigh 90 pounds from shipping containers, earning about $100 per day. He leaves at 9:00 a.m. and comes home at 9:00 p.m. Sometimes they call him because he knows about sound systems, and they pay him $150 for the day. I am willing to clean, cook, take care of children, whatever. I don’t care. Despite all the sacrifices we are better off here than in Venezuela.
The organizers of the food dispensary are volunteers from Farm Share. They help pack and distribute bags of items donated by large food stores in South Florida. Volunteers guide vehicles through the waiting line and put notes on their windshields tallying how many families are picking up bags of vegetables, chicken, meat and other items. After a couple hours, the families get what they need, thank everyone, and leave.
“We see more and more Venezuelans on these lines,” said Marta López as she waited in her car. Some days she volunteers to hand out food, and other days she delivers bags to the homes of Venezuelans who have to work during distribution hours.
Jenny Rojas is from Ciudad Guayana in southern Venezuela. “If they want to be helped, I help. But there are people who don’t want to be helped, and they have more problems than they should,” she says. She walks up the stairs and opens the door to the office.
He talks about his training – eight hours or more of swimming and long-distance running in the Miami heat. “I have blisters from carrying things, from working in warehouses. I’ve had to do anything to feed myself and support my family in Venezuela. And I have to come up with the money for the visa, about $10,000 for a lawyer and the [application] process.”
The others listen and ask more questions. They also want to tell their stories. They want to talk, but under one condition: that their real names or photos aren’t published, especially ones showing poverty.
“Our family in Venezuela tells us to stick it out, because everything is worse there.”
Rita González landed in Miami four months ago with just $200 in cash. She paid the money to an “agency” to find her a job. She and two friends split a $2,000-per-month salary to clean a restaurant before dawn. Now she’s finding jobs for others and living in a house in Doral where she rents out rooms.
Last night was the final straw. I’m not going back to that job. You get to the restaurant at 9:00 p.m. and you have to clean everything: the kitchen, the bathrooms, the tables, everything, until 5:00 a.m. It’s really tough. Do you know what it’s like to spend every morning cleaning with just two other people?
The job pays $2,000, to be divided between people who work seven days a week. I made about $600 in May and June, but I’m too tired. It’s very, very hard.
I landed in Miami on February 25, 2016, with $200 in my pocket. I came alone because someone offered to find me a job. I paid $200 and I lost the money – he didn’t get me anything.
But now I have my own agency, and I help find jobs for other people. I’ve worked mostly as a waitress in hotels. Some pay better than others, like $9.50 an hour, or $80 per day.
I rented a house in Doral. They didn’t ask for a security deposit or the first month’s rent, but I rented it for $3,600 per month. (On Zillow, rent is listed at $2,100 per month). I rent out the two other bedrooms. Right now there are eight adults and one girl.
There are a lot of people here who help you, sympathetic people, and also people who cheat you and mess with you because they know you can’t file a complaint against them. One guy sold us a car, which we paid for with our car in Venezuela. On the second day, the car broke down and he didn’t want to hear about it. He insulted my husband and threatened to call immigration. When I have papers, I want to file a complaint against him, but right now I can’t.
I’ve already sent food to my family. And they tell me: ‘Don’t you even think about coming back. Stick it out there. Everything is worse here.’
Venezuelans are worried about low-paid, occasionally dangerous work. “These seven stitches on my arm cost me $1,800,” said Sergio.
He leaves the room. He’s a U.S. resident who spends his free time helping his countrymen.
“I tell everyone not to come to Miami, that it’s really hard. But they don’t listen to me.”
I did help the student protesters. I gave them food, washed their clothes, helped them with everything they needed because I believe in democracy and freedom.
That day I understood why the ‘political police’ had gone to my company and my house: to look for me. Luckily I wasn’t there when they arrived. I was terrified. I went into hiding and didn’t go home. I really learned what fear was. My husband and I decided to come to the United States.
A few months after that horrible day, we decided to leave and come to Miami. I always tell people not to come to Miami. It’s expensive and difficult; people face many hardships and the papers aren’t easy. I offer them all my support, but I tell them to think it over carefully. Without planning, immigration is very difficult.
I dream of starting a business and achieving financial freedom in this country. My husband and I are working toward our dreams. I think of the day when everything is fixed in my country and I can go home. I do dream about that.
They all know about Yelitza, who slept in a rented car for four nights at the Miami airport with her family. “I found her on the fourth night and brought her to my house. That was two months ago, and the two adults already have jobs. They rented a place and are doing well,” Rojas says.
Rojas and López get phone calls at all hours of the day — an eviction, hunger, medicine, a doctor. And then there are people in hospitals whose cases Rojas handles personally. There is cancer, car accidents, emergency surgeries – all without health insurance. One hospital has been especially helpful, they say, but it’s closing its doors because of the growing number of Venezuelan patients. That’s another problem Jenny Rojas is trying to fix.
The city of Doral appears picturesque, with recently painted and exclusive homes and lakes full of ducks and herons. But what’s behind the image? Families crowded into one bedroom so they can pay rent.
“I live in a huge house, and I’m broke,” Laura Rosa wrote on WhatsApp.
Facing deportation
“They haven’t reviewed even the first of this new wave in 2016, and none from the wave that started in February 2014, when the government cracked down [on the opposition]. They have resolved some of the more urgent cases, but it’s all delayed. What’s going to happen? By mid-2017 there will be a mass deportation of Venezuelans,” he said.
He also warned of many cases of fraud by those interested in profiting off desperate Venezuelans. He cautioned against using public notaries to handle asylum petitions.
“They threatened us. You’re going to die, little Yankees, traitors of the homeland.”
But one time they followed and ambushed us. They were riding motorcycles, and it was clear they were members of colectivos [armed pro-government groups]. Their shirts had the insignia of the PSUV [the governing United Socialist Party of Venezuela] and “Chavez Lives!”
After that, they followed us several more times. They would threaten us and say, ‘You’re going to die, little Yankees, traitors of the homeland.’ They knew where we lived and where our business was. The following month they broke into our office, destroyed a computer and stole another. They left messages for me there. When we got there, we found graffiti on the windows.
Then came the express kidnapping of my children and one of their wives. The kidnappers drove them around and beat them. When they were freed, the kidnappers sent me a message: they told me to stop writing against the government on Twitter, or else I would suffer the same fate as a friend jailed in ‘the tomb’ – an underground jail where the government holds political prisoners.
We came to the United States about a year ago. The money isn’t quite enough. I have a neighbor who’s a gardener and sometimes he pays me to help him. Another neighbor in construction also asks for help and pays me. I work until late. I’ve lost 30 pounds and my arms hurt. We have worked washing dishes, cars, everything. My children get work here and there.
Sometimes we barely make rent, and we save on groceries by going every Saturday to the places where they give away food. We are practically living off charity.
Patricia Clarembaux contributed to this report.
She left so heartbroken that she hasn’t wanted to post on WhatsApp since.
“Dear group, I got money to move into an apartment. Thank you for your support. Let me know about any donated beds for my daughters and me. I have an apartment without furniture but full of love.”
Rachel Glickhouse contributed to this report.