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SALT LAKE CITY — Nine Venezuelan family members found themselves on the steps of a church in downtown Salt Lake City with several suitcases and nowhere to stay after arriving earlier that freezing February night at the Salt Lake City International Airport.
The family was flown from New York City after staying in various migrant shelters there for a month, after which a social worker offered the family the opportunity to go to another city. The family accepted and was put on a flight to Salt Lake City. It is not clear which organization or program paid for the family's tickets.
"We were lost, we didn't know where to go. We didn't know what to do," Yulianny Escudero told KSL.com in Spanish.
The family must've looked as lost as they felt when a passerby at the airport gave them the address of the First United Methodist Church. The church was operating as a shelter during a Code Blue, which allows homeless shelters and identified facilities to expand capacity when temperatures are expected to drop to 15 degrees.
The family was taken inside, fed and introduced to Wendy Garvin, executive director at Unsheltered Utah, who arranged somewhere for the family to stay — hotel rooms for that night and the following days.
The journey to America
The family left Venezuela amid an economic crisis and the election of a new president. Escudero had previously worked for Hugo Chavez before Nicolás Maduro replaced him. Struggling to feed her children, Escudero felt politically persecuted by the new government. The family left Venezuela and trekked through Chile, Peru, Bolivia and Ecuador.
Some of the most treacherous parts of the group's journey included six days in the Darién Gap — one of the world's most dangerous migration routes. It includes more than 60 miles of dense rainforest, steep mountains and vast swamps between Columbia and Panama. Along that route, the family saw jaguars, snakes and the bodies of those who had perished along their own migration paths.
If we're going to support immigration, we also have to fund immigration and we have to provide pathways for people who come here to become productive members of society.
– Wendy Garvin, Unsheltered Utah
The Gap is well-traveled, marked with red flags to warn of danger and blue flags showing the way forward. After three days of walking without rest, Yuleydis Mendez collapsed on the jungle floor, after numerous falls.
"I was tired. Three days I had walked in the jungle without resting. I started crying and said that I would just stay here, go ahead," said Mendez, a close friend of Escudero. "My feet were broken, I was tired and my daughter, far ahead, said it's hard but it's not impossible and if she can do it why can't I? So, I went ahead. We saw dead people ... too many things."
Despite the fear and physical difficulty, the group pushed forward.
"You can't stay in the halfway because of the kids. This was our destination and we made it," said Eduardo Marchena, Escudero's partner.
Their navigation of the U.S. immigration system began Dec. 18, 2023, when they crossed the Rio Grande into the United States near Eagle Pass, Texas. The multi-generational family was among nearly 63,000 Venezuelan migrants to cross that month, the second-highest total that fiscal year. The highest number of people from Venezuela crossed in September, with a little over 72,000 "encounters" recorded by U.S. Border Patrol.
The group followed "a chain" of migrants through the Rio Grande, Escudero said. The youngest members of the family — a 1-year-old, 2-year-old and 6-year-old — were carried on their parents' shoulders as they waded through the deep, icy waters, which, at the deepest, was just below the adults' necks. When the group reached land, they were met with rows of razor wire.
Migrants ahead of them had placed leftover clothing over the top and between the rows, allowing them to pass through without serious injury. Once they had crawled through, they surrendered themselves to U.S. Customs and Border Protection and were placed in detention centers.
They spent four days there, in their wet clothing, waiting for initial processing. The four children were separated from the rest of the group, said Escudero. The family was also unable to contact the children by telephone for three days.
"We didn't know if it was day or night because of the white lights," Escudero added.
The family was released after four days and stayed for some time in a Texas church building — then were put on a bus to New York City as part of Texas Gov. Greg Abbott's initiative to send migrants to other states. The group was given the choice to be sent to New York, Chicago or Denver.
A month later, they found themselves in Salt Lake City.
In the meantime
"I feel like an orphan child, sent here and there," said Mendez. But, given the opportunity, he says they would like to stay in Utah.
"We want to get our work permit and get stability, so we can have economic stability and help our families. We are very grateful for the help but want to get on our own feet," said Marchena. "We can do anything, what we don't know we can learn. When you leave your country you have to go to the other country and do whatever. You have to start at the bottom and get better."
Because the family and their children are seeking asylum, they are residing in the country legally and have been given temporary protected status. The adults have begun the process to apply for work permits and have an immigration court date set for August 2025.
The humanitarian crisis at the border and the economic crisis in South American countries like Venezuela have created an influx of migrant families to the U.S. There were more than 2.4 million apprehensions at the southern border in the 2023 fiscal year, more than any other year since at least 1960, according to government data, bringing immigration to the forefront of U.S. politics in an election year.
A Pew Research Survey indicates that 8 in 10 U.S. adults say the government is doing a very or somewhat bad job dealing with the large number of migrants seeking to enter the U.S. at the border with Mexico. And nearly as many say the situation is either a "crisis" (45%) or a "major problem" (32%) for the U.S.
It is not clear whether the recent high numbers of encounters at the border will persist in 2024 with encounters falling to around 124,000 in January.
"We are working with multiple migrant families — most of them are asylum seekers," said Garvin, adding that refugee services don't apply to asylum seekers, resulting in no programs or funding to help them.
"In my mind, a family-friendly state would never have children living on the street and I don't care where they come from, or what their political affiliations are," she said. "But, as a state, if we're going to support immigration, we also have to fund immigration and we have to provide pathways for people who come here to become productive members of society."
Correction: An earlier version misidentified the agency to which the family surrendered. It was U.S. Customs and Border Protection.
