Wet feet, dry backs.
She looks like a little plant that has been denied watering. Her husband looks like a log about to be cut down. Both are over 60 years of age. Like thousands of Venezuelans this year, they entered the United States on June 9 after crossing the Rio Grande. At the point where they crossed, the distance between one bank and the other is 540 feet. Wet feet that wobble while stepping on the sometimes muddy cobblestone river bed. At this time of the year, the water is warm and can reach the walker’s waist at some points.
The arrival
At 4 in the afternoon of June 9, a group of about 100 people had already crossed the river. They jumped over the fence of a house, walked through a well-trimmed lawn surrounded by pomegranate bushes, and finally got to public land again. On a curve in the road, in the middle of a dusty clearing, they waited about two hours for the border patrol authorities to organize them: family groups, older adults, and those traveling alone. Then, they were taken in buses and vans to one of the registration centers. Yomaira and her husband, Alfredo, were among this group of people.
Upon arrival, the border police asked the group of people to remove the braids from their shoes and keep all their belongings, including their phones, which most avoid turning on, even if some have a Mexican line that operates in the binational zone.
Yomaira has short hair, the heat seems to melt her face. She borrowed our phone to call her daughter in Miami whom she has not seen for three years and 11 days. “We crossed, mija. We crossed, ”she says in a breaking voice. Her husband Alfredo tries to put himself together after the crossing. They come from Maracaibo.
Suddenly, everyone wants to talk on the phone. Older people take out little paper notebooks with the numbers of their relatives in the United States. The youngest ones know the numbers by heart. Almost everyone has a contact in this country. Except for Aldo, who borrows a phone to notify his wife back in Maracaibo that he made it safely.
We heard their comments while waiting for the bus.
What was the most difficult part of the journey?
Some say the uncertainty, others say the high temperature. Some had difficulty with the 15-minute walk to reach the bank of the Rio Grande (or Río Bravo, as it is known in Mexico).
Daisy M says that she was not afraid of crossing through the water because she comes from Ceuta. She got a bruise on her left arm while walking down a slope towards the edge of the river on the Mexican side.
Ceuta?
It is a pueblo de agua in Zulia, swiftly explains Gabriela, a 37 years old teacher from Cabimas. It is one of the towns in the Venezuelan state of Zulia that have been built on stilts in the waters of Lake Maracaibo. Daisy was born in one of those towns 67 years ago, although she has lived in the capital of Zulia for 30 years.
Gabriela is traveling with Gladys, her mother, who confesses between laughs that she is 75 years old. She is sitting on a makeshift bench. They are with Gabriela’s son, a 15-year-old teenager named Sabastián who wears a t-shirt with the cast of the famous American sitcom Friends. His favorite character is Chandler.
Because of his bad jokes? I ask him.
-Yes- he answers and smiles. And that smile seems to carry Gabriela’s determination to leave behind an attempt to settle in Bogotá two years ago and now go north to seek better living conditions.
At least seven families can be counted in this group. Some are children aged two or three years and many others teenagers.
The Venezuelans who arrived between June 9 and 12 come from the Venezuelan cities of Guacara, Coro, Ceuta, Valencia, Maracay, Caracas, Barinas, Barquisimeto, and Puerto Ordaz, and also from Quito, Bogotá, Medellín, Panamá, and Lima. Although there are family groups, not all of them knew each other beforehand. Some say that their relatives in the US paid for the trip while others state that they did it on their own without any help.
The word coyote floats in the air, but nobody dares to mention it. Only one person, a merchant, says that he saved for a year to pay for the trip. He claims that he paid three thousand dollars, including the plane ticket.
Although they all have in common being from Venezuela, some are migrating for the second time. Another element in common is that they have a relative in the US. They mention Miami, Orlando, and Houston. They will all seek asylum. None of them expresses the intention to stay in Del Río.
Many did not know their exact location
“Where is that?” asked one of the migrant’s relatives over the phone.
“I’m Venezuelan”
Almost as soon as they take a foot out of the water and travel a few steps into American soil, some of the migrants raise their arms and shout: Venezuelan, Venezuelan. Others kneel and look at the sky, some cry, others try to go unnoticed, and some others faint. Between June 9 and 13, Efecto Cocuyo registered the passage of at least 300 Venezuelan nationals. They cross at dusk, at around 4 pm, but also at 7 at night and in the early morning, when only the lights of the patrol cars are visible.
Since last February, the Texan city of Del Río, population 35,000, has become the main gateway to the United States for these migrants. The traces of their passage can be seen across the area. They leave behind torn documents, wet clothes that are removed to put on dry ones, shoelaces and shoes, children’s socks, and even a woman’s bag with some disposable belongings and a Samsung cell phone that survived the elements for several months and has among the saved contacts with code 58 names like “La Loca” (The crazy girl), “La profe” (The teacher), “Mi amor” (My love), “Abogado” (Attorney) and “Vieja Chora” (mugger old lady). All are thrown across the area where they congregate after crossing the river.
Some have traveled up to a month to reach Acuña, a Mexican city across the river from Del Río. Others have traveled for four days and some even claim to have traveled less than two days. Some started the journey in Venezuela, others in Ecuador, Peru, or Colombia. A common route is traveling from Monterrey to Acuña. Some people arrived in Mexico by plane from Caracas.
They carry valid Venezuelan passports and even foreigners’ cards from other countries. They keep their documents in ziplock bags. Most carry their belongings in waterproof backpacks, although some use carry-on suitcases, of the kind that fit in an airplane cabin.
Del Río, a boring town?
85.8 percent of the 35,000 residents of Del Rio are Hispanic or Latino. The city, whose temperature ranges between 95 and 105 degrees in the summer, belongs to Val Verde county.
The section through which the largest passage of Venezuelans has been verified is an area called Vega Verde, on the edge of the river. The heat is reminiscent of Maracaibo, while the banks of the river bring memories of Guasdualito. This transit area is a 15-minute drive from the busiest areas of the city and can be reached by a road in good conditions.
Wild grass, small sunflowers that peek out in the breeze, tiny daisies that look like badminton balls, bushes, and some trees fill this semi-rural neighborhood whose residents sleep peacefully and do not express fear of the migrants, even though they report being annoyed by the waste left by some travelers.
However, there are signs of concern among politicians. On June 10, the governor of Texas, Gregg Abbot, held a meeting in the city, promised to toughen regional legislation to discourage migrants, and spoke of building a wall.
Most of those who make the journey walk through private property, a house that faces the water. This is the spot where a team from Fox television installed its cameras to broadcast the most dramatic scenes of what is already a daily occurrence. Although the house remains vacant, the owner has been present several times and expresses her discontent that the migrants use her yard as a passageway: This is trespassing, she claims.
On the evening of June 9, hundreds of residents held a meeting to express their concern over the “migration wave”, according to a local newspaper that publishes both in English and Spanish.
According to data from the US Customs and Border Protection, 10,635 non-legal entries of Venezuelan nationals were reported in the Del Río area between January and June 3, 2021, up from 145 registered in the fiscal year 2019-2020. In total, between October 2020, when the fiscal year in the US begins, and June 3, 10,717 entries were registered. This part of the border is made up of eight sectors; Del Río accounts for 81.4% of the total entries so far this fiscal year, which makes this city the epicenter of the mobilization of Venezuelan nationals who enter the United States by land at times when borders remained closed due to the COVID-19 pandemic.
However, with an increase of more than 7,000 percent, the number of Venezuelans entering the US through Del Río is barely 9 percent of the total number of entries registered by the authorities, which in 9 months has already doubled the figure of last fiscal year. The fiscal year 2019-2020 saw 40,342 entries, compared to 118,314 this year.
Data from the US Customs and Border Protection show an increase in the number of Venezuelan nationals who cross into the US through the Rio Grande border.
In a tour of both rural and urban areas of the county, Efecto Cocuyo did not find any migrants wandering around. Store workers denied seeing any, although they are aware of the situation.
A Del Río cab driver told us:
“This is a boring town. We all know each other. It was quieter until many migrants began to enter, especially those from Valenzuela. They just cross the river and are given papers. While others coming from different countries are imprisoned”.
What is the situation of the Venezuelan nationals?
In images that have gone viral, Venezuelans are seen being greeted by men in uniforms who extend their hands to them. In some cases, it is the state police and in other cases, it is the border patrol. Most Venezuelans express their intention to seek asylum by surrendering to the authorities. In several of the cases followed by Efecto Cocuyo, people are registered and after a few days in detention, they receive a notification to travel to join their relatives in the US and appear before a judge. This is known as a court notice. However, none of the interviewees knew their exact legal status.
“Venezuelans are generally managing to cross the border through Del Río, where they can request asylum; but Central Americans are being turned back to Ojinaga (Mexico)”, explains a report in the news medium Al Dia, which further details the contradictory policies on immigration and the fact that Mexico is a kind of firewall for migrants from other countries.
In Del Río there is the Val Verde Border Humanitarian Coalition, a group that receives migrants once they have obtained permission to travel. They assist them with information, a phone line to call their relatives, and transport bookings. There are no overnight stays in the shelter and the organization does not have funds for cash aid.
Although the majority of those who have recently attended the center are Venezuelan nationals, Haitians and Cubans were also seen during a visit by Efecto Cocuyo.
Yomaira, Alfredo, Daisy M, and Gladys were assisted at the center on June 12, two days after arriving in Del Río. Gladys was processed separately from her daughter and grandson. At the humanitarian center, the migrants received an envelope to protect their documents, a backpack, and some food. They made the first call to their relatives and bought the tickets that would take them to the reunion.
Some migrants fly out of the small Del Rio airport. Others travel by bus to San Antonio, a three hours drive away. Drivers from the Greyhound company, which serves the route with two departures a day, told Efecto Cocuyo that they had noticed an increase in migrant passengers.
Yumaira and Alfredo traveled by plane to Miami on the same day, while Daisy flew to Orlando. They arrived almost at midnight. By June 13, after a little rest, their voices sounded full of joy.
Translated by José Rafael Medina
