October 30, 2024 • 40 mins
In part three of his series on the Darién Gap, James talks about what drives Venezuelan and African migrants to make the journey through the Darién Gap.
Sources:
https://www.instagram.com/p/DAaDkSwh1Jk/?igsh=bmgyanBteW10czd5
https://www.themanual.com/outdoors/darien-gap-feature/
https://www.theguardian.com/global-development/2024/apr/18/panama-darien-gap-jose-raul-mulino
https://www.aljazeera.com/opinions/2022/10/27/the-darien-gap-a-deadly-extension-of-the-us-border
https://www.hrw.org/sites/default/files/supporting_resources/jmhs.pdf
https://www.strausscenter.org/publications/asylum-processing-at-the-u-s-mexico-border-august-2024/
https://www.msf.org/lack-action-sees-sharp-rise-sexual-violence-people-transiting-darien-gap-panama
See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
Mark as Played
Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:01):
All media. It's me James, and before we listen to
this episode today, I just did want to make you
a way that I conducted these interviews in French and Spanish,
mostly Spanish, and then transcribed and translated them. So what
you're hearing is a translated interview that's being edited for
brevity and content. I hope you enjoyed the episode.
Speaker 2 (00:26):
LVY awesome. Yeah, the journey is dangerous, but what can
we do. We can't stay in a country where the
economy is getting worse and worse. With a salary of
three dollars a month, you can't survive. Like my friend said,
if you have a job in other countries, maybe you
(00:47):
can invest some money. But where are you going to
get the money to invest If before you had a
salary that fed you paid for your car, your house
and your children to enjoy it all with, and now
you can't even afford to put gas in the car.
So it's true. Yeah, the darien is dangerous, but nothing
is impossible. We walk hand in hand with God and
(01:07):
with the faith that we will get there. But that
doesn't mean it isn't difficult. But I'll say it again,
it's not impossible. You suffer, you cry, you go hungry cold,
but thank God we made it through.
Speaker 1 (01:27):
Bored around the Tuquesa River, the jungle rumbles quiet as
you pass by on your boat. Insects, frogs, and birds
all combined to make a sort of deep throbbing that
emanates from the darkness between the trees. It seems it
wants to be calling you in and warning you to
stay away. I've been in the jungle before, in the
Rwanda Congo borderlands and in Venezuela, but I've never really
(01:50):
felt the sense of foreboding I did as we rode
down the river, protected only by our hollow log, looking
into the triple canopy forest, and knowing that if I
walk long enough in the shadows, I'd be confronted with
the remains of people I might have interviewed if it
hadn't been for a rolled ankle, a slippery rock, or
a desperate sip of water. To understand what drives people
to enter the jungle with their children and their dreams,
(02:12):
I think we also have to understand what drives them
to leave wherever they're living. And that's what I want
to talk about today, the story of migrants crossing the
Daddy and gap is an American one. It's impossible to
disentangle the people making this dangerous journey from the history
of support for dictatorship sanctions, an imperial plunder that ties
the United States to its American brothers and sisters in
the South. Sometimes I play a game with myself at
(02:34):
the border where I try and meet people from all
the countries named in Washington bullets in a single day.
Since Biden bungled the Afghanistan withdraw, it's become a lot easier,
but Tibet can be hard. For two hundred years, since
President Monroe gave the State of the Union address in
December eighteen twenty three, the US has seen the Western
hemisphere is its sphere of influence. What is opposed old
(02:55):
fashioned colonialism. It has used less avert methods of control,
as well as overt military across the hemisphere. For much
of the last century, it supported and installed dictators who
would prevent what it saw as a threat of state
socialism in its sphere of influence, and allowed them to
create economic and political climates that were unsurvivable for the
majority and extremely profitable for US based corporations. The direct
(03:18):
result of this policy has been economic insecurity, political instability,
and state violence across South and Central America, resulting in
people making the very natural humor decision to flee to
somewhere safer. As in so many other empires, they've made
the choice to lead a destabilized colonial periphery and seek
safety instability in the metropol For more than a century,
(03:39):
money and good to be able to travel seamlessly up
and down the continent, but people have not. The bananaread
for breakfast this morning made the journey in a few days,
but people take months, if not years, pay thousands of dollars,
climb mountains ford rivers, and risk their lives on trains
and buses that cost a lot more than the flights
I took to Panama, but offered considerably less comfort and safety.
(04:01):
As climate change has have a greater impacts, more and
more people are forced to leave their homes so their
livelihoods become less sustainable. The Guna, the indigenous people at
the Panamanian coast, in an area called Guna Yala, are
having to withdraw from some of their islands because of
sea level rise. Right now, agriculture across the world is
increasingly threatened by extreme weather and rising temperatures, and our
(04:22):
oceans are less they're able to sustain life than they
once were due to pollution and overfishing. Forced to leave
their homes as people have been for millennia by weather
patterns changing, people head to places that have want to
caused much of the issue and tried to insulate themselves
from its consequences. Their American dreams are modest to overcome
the crippling low paid. They received a home to bring
(04:45):
their children up in a place where they have a
good chance of surviving their twenties, to work and get
paid enough to get by. They want to be able
to protest and not get shot, and to look forward
to the future not feared. These aren't guaranteed in the USA,
and as many of you listening will know, it can
be high for us to make ends meet here as well.
But despite what you see on social and legacy media,
(05:05):
things are unlikely to become as bad here as they
are in Venezuela, Cameroon or Iran anytime soon. I've lived
in Venezuela, specifically in the formerly jab eastern neighborhood of
La Pastora in Caracas, and I've seen how hard it
is for my friends who still live there. Even for
people with no other disadvantages, making rent and feeding your
family can be a challenge. That's part of why Venezuelan
(05:26):
people make up the majority of the folks I met
men daddian so much so that I'd slipped back into
using Venezuelan slang in Spanish, and after a few days
of seeing the same people engaging in the kind of
friendly mockery and banter that I remember well from Caracas,
mostly the super form of asking them why they crossed
a Daddian gap in Man United shirts or worse yet,
in a Chelsea shit. It's important to steal moments of
(05:47):
humor in these difficult times, to laugh a little among
all the suffering, and that's something people in Venezuela have
done very well for a very long time. But despite
their humor, I could tell the journey had a serious
impact on the people I spoke to.
Speaker 3 (06:03):
You have to go through a lot, a lot of jungle,
a lot of hills. There are people, there are dead
people on the road, so it's something you cannot really explain.
It's complicated because everything can be explained in a fashion,
but it's not the same as living it. It's insanity.
Three four days with that food and nothing. One thing
is to live it. Explaining it, talking about it, that's different.
(06:27):
It's hard to put into words.
Speaker 1 (06:29):
This interview is when I conducted with one group of
Venezuelan migrants with my voice recorder in the chest pocket
of my shirt and whatever bags it let me carry
in my hands. We walked along the last part of
the trail, discussing what they'd seen. For a while, we
joked a little. One guy had crossed it a man
United ship. I talked to him about the team and
the universal dislike non Manu fans have for Menu fans.
(06:50):
Then after a while they opened up more about their experiences.
They had, they said, seen their bodies, and they couldn't
stop thinking about what happened if they had for them,
and they wanted to know how when or if the
dead people's family would ever find out.
Speaker 4 (07:07):
The family waits for that person to come out to
hear that they made it, because if not, who's going
to let you know? There's no signal and nobody's going
to grab the body, and you're not going to carry
them out. The person stays there and eventually years and
years go by and the family won't know where they
are or how they died. Those are the sort of
things that one doesn't expect to see, and it makes
(07:28):
you just want to hurry past. Not that you wouldn't
want to get the documentation from the body and deliver
it and tell them how this person had passed away,
But how dare you just go grabbing a dead body?
Speaker 1 (07:39):
Nethuinan elections were held on the twenty eighth of July
this year. Venezuelan pressions have a six year term and
the incumbent, the Colasma Duro, has been in office since
twenty thirty. I let the Venezuelan people and that introduce
themselves and explain the result of the election. Now there's
a bit of background noise here, but that's because we're
walking on the trails and it's hard to avoid.
Speaker 2 (08:02):
I am coming from Venezuela, migrating through the jungle for
a better future for me and my children. I'll tell
you it's hard, but it's not impossible. No, that was
electoral fraud. And I tell you what, one day, you
just have to leave.
Speaker 1 (08:17):
Maduro was opposed by A Juardo Gonzalez, an opposite candidate
who represented a wide coalition in creating groups on the
left and right. While Maduro might have support among Western
socialists and even communists, the actual Venezuelan Communist Parties youth
organization formed part of the Popular Democratic Front that opposed him.
Despite Paul Watchers tallying a massive victory for the opposition,
(08:38):
Moduro controls the National Lecture Council and proclaimed himself the victor.
People protested, and Maduro responded with bullets. Gonzales fled to
the Dutch and then the Spanish embassy, and later claimed
asylum in Spain, where his family lived. But for regular
working class Venezuelan's there's no option to hop on a
flight to safety. Instead, they have to be in the
(09:00):
long walk north, as many Venezuelans in respect you told me.
In addition to the electoral fraud, Venezuela is undergoing an
economic collapse, at least in the Chavis. He said, most
people could eat. When I lived in La Pastora, I
was able to access medical care from Cuban doctors. Now
they say things have become a Survivaldo.
Speaker 5 (09:19):
So you're Venezuela. When Venezuela, well, I would say that Venezuela,
(09:40):
you know, yeah, you can live but not on a
minimum wage.
Speaker 3 (09:44):
I would say that, for example, working independently in an
independent business, maybe you can live good. But working and
surviving for a minimum wage now, the truth is that
it doesn't work, and that's serious. Things are still bad
with the new elections and the new government. Everything is ugly.
Speaker 5 (10:02):
Yeah.
Speaker 3 (10:03):
The streets of Caracas are full of protests. Every day.
People went out to protest. Sometimes they shoot people. The
government mistreats people. But if you can live with it,
and you can live with it it's ugly. Well, that
is why we left there for a better future, and
we will keep moving onward onward.
Speaker 1 (10:22):
This group were young men traveling in advance with their families,
hoping to earn some money, save it up, and send
it home. They knew what they were getting into when
they got to the USA, that migrants were often underpaid
and might struggle to make ends meet, but they still
thought it was better than staying home and watching your
children's future disappear.
Speaker 4 (10:42):
If you don't have papers, you don't have a work permit,
you have to work for it. They want to pay you,
not for what you demand or anything.
Speaker 1 (10:49):
I met lots of Venezuela families with children who had
different illnesses or disabilities, things they couldn't obtain or afford
treatment for in Venezuela. They were traveling to the US
in the hopes of a better future for their kids,
or any future at all. I met young men who
left their children behind but carried the children of strangers,
even those with whom they didn't share a language. Christian,
(11:10):
who he heard from earlier, showed me how he'd carried
someone else's child on his shoulders until he fell and
hurt his knee.
Speaker 6 (11:17):
We all help.
Speaker 3 (11:17):
I put little children up here on my shoulders to
carry them, but it isn't easy.
Speaker 1 (11:21):
In the jungle, they'd formed chains using their arms to
cross rivers and carried little children on those who couldn't swim.
In Barji Guito, I saw a group of men from
Angola receiving hugs from Venezuela and women they'd helped in
the jungle. Without the help of the Angolans, they said
their children wouldn't have made it. One slip or a
loss of grip, they told me, would be fatal, and
the remains of those who had done just that served
(11:42):
as a grisly reminder. Later, little boys, maybe eight or
ten years old gleefully recounted seeing a dead body on
which the head had quote exploded while their parents winked
in recollection. I wanted to understand a bit more of
what they were fleeing. That made it worth going through
all this.
Speaker 5 (12:01):
Venezuela.
Speaker 7 (12:03):
Well, I left Venezuela because I worked in fishing. But
right now in Venezuela, despite the fact that it is
a country rich and oil, there's not enough gasoline for
the fishermen to go fishing. And since I did not
have the ability to even buy basic things such as food,
the situation was, well, it was a little complicated. I
had to immigrate. I had nothing else to do. They
(12:25):
didn't rob me, well, they were going to rob me
because I didn't have anything to steal. We passed by
and the group that was behind us got robbed. They
raped women in that group.
Speaker 1 (12:37):
Almost every Venezuelan micro and I speG to share a
similar story. One said he didn't stare security cameras, but
nobody could afford them now, as it had to choose
between rent and groceries or medical procedures that they needed
but couldn't afford. Overwhelmingly they said the same thing. No aifuturo,
there's no future. One group said to me that they
couldn't wait for their country to become like Cuba, as
(12:57):
decades of embargos took their toll on the population. But
others reminded me in them that least of Cubans seem
to have doctors. Venezuela has an eighty percent poverty right now,
and though it sits on one of the largest oil
reserves of any country on Earth, it's been plagued by
planting oil prices in the years of hyperinflation, which got
so bad at one point the shots stopped putting price
tags on things and relied on staff to give up
(13:19):
to the minute prices. Today, alongside a regime that lacks legitimacy,
a state that readily uses horrific violence against its people,
an election that was essentially ignored, Venezuelan's must also deal
with shortages of basic goods, poverty, and malnutrition. Unlike Cubans
who have a relatively good polittal lobby in the USA,
Venezuelan's coming to the USA do not benefit from special laws.
(13:41):
Cubans under the Cuban Adjustment Act have a part of
the citizenship and permanence once they set foot on US soil.
Venezuelans do not. They're covered by something called a temporary
protected status, but this does not afford them much in
the way of stability, protection, or a secure future. His
Ereka Pinhidro of Alotolado and Incredible organization does valuable work
with migrant legal aid advocacy and humanitarian relief, explaining just
(14:04):
how temporary a TPS is.
Speaker 6 (14:06):
So temporary protected status is it's basically a form of
protecting individuals who are already in the United States when
their countries have experienced a natural disaster, if they are
in war, there's some kind of situation going on that
makes it difficult for them to return, and so temporary
(14:28):
protected status was first created in nineteen ninety and the
first individuals who receive the status were from El Salvador,
and since then, I think there's been a few dozen
countries that have been designated. But basically the way it
works is they designate a country and so if you
were in the United States before that designation date, you
(14:50):
can apply for temporary protected status within a designated time
period and you get a work permit. It's valid for six,
twelve or eighteen months and then two months before it expires,
the Secretary of the Department of holand Security has to
say whether or not they're going to reauthorize GPS. So
(15:13):
there's like eight hundred and sixty thousand people in the
US who have temporary protected status and it's not a
path to citizenship. So basically people are just in limbo
sometimes for decades, you know, they just have to reapply
for this permit every eighteen months. So I have quite
a few salvador and friends who've been in the United
(15:36):
States since the nineties. They have kids, some of them
current kids, or a US citizen, and they can't become
permanent residents or have a path the citizenship unless they
leave the country and either come back with another type
of parole or you know, apply through a consulate, which
many of them are just not willing to take that risk.
Speaker 1 (15:55):
Well, makes things even more complicated for the Venezuelans is
that many of them are traveling without document. It costs
three hundred bucks to get a passport, they told me,
and the weight's considerable. This makes their journeys even harder
as every country the enter has to approve them to
without a passport. Getting a visa, they said would be
nearly impossible, and just trying that result in the government
coming after them. Such things, they said, are reserved for
(16:19):
the wealthier citizens, people like Gonzales, who's asylum claim and
stays at the Dutch and Spanish embassies, and his right
to join his family in exile are all luxuries that
most of his country people can't expect. Instead, most Venezuelans
must ride buses through Columbia, then walk north through the jungle,
then ride buses stir away on trains, or walk again
all the way to the border. They all lamented the
(16:40):
Dadian crossing and so they wouldn't advise it without other options.
They all made it anyway, community.
Speaker 4 (16:51):
See, because because unfortunately we don't have much in our country.
You don't have another option. When you're dying of hunger
and you don't have a future, you can't even study.
So yeah, it's worth it.
Speaker 1 (17:12):
The economic situation is dire in Venezuela. Many families can't
make end me, their currency is almost worth us, and
the majority government seems to have successfully installed itself for
the foreseeable future. This will mean a continuation of embargos
and sanctions, which will harm the people more than the regime. Sadly, though,
economic hardships is not a criteria which won't be grounded
asylum in the usah Erica.
Speaker 6 (17:33):
Again, so severe economic deprivation can be persecution if it's
linked to one of the other protege grounds, so race, religion, nationality,
political opinion, or membership, but in a particular social group. So
for example, if someone participated in anti Maduro political activity
(17:55):
and then we're blocked from getting a job or just
denied economic opportunities to the point where they're starving, the
economic deprivation could count as persecution, but it's a very
difficult case to make in the United States. In Mexico,
you can get protection based on generalized conditions in your country,
(18:17):
and so you know, Venezuelans betweeing economic collapse or even
Central Americans fleeing extreme violence have a much easier time
dating protection in Mexico than they would in the United
States because of that kind of extra category of protection
in Mexico. The issue with Mexico is just the very
(18:37):
limited capacity of this islum system overall, and the very
dangerous conditions in which people are forced to wait while
their cases are judicated.
Speaker 1 (18:45):
Going forward from the Dadian, they'll face an enormously difficult journey.
The US does have a program for Cubans, Venezuelan and
Haitians and Nicaraguans, then in theory allows them to apply,
be pre approved and fly straight to the USA, but
it's so delayed and it's just not an option for
people who barely have enough money for food, let learn
a plane ticket there.
Speaker 6 (19:05):
This HMV program is for Cumanations, nick Garaguans, Venezuelans who
have not crossed into Panama or Mexico in the past
few years. You do not qualify who've done that or
have not been inter died at sea. If they're Haitian
or Cuban, you have to have a sponsor in the
United States who have some kind of legal status. You
(19:27):
have to be able to pay for the flight, you
have to have a passport, and you have to be
able to wait forever long it takes for your application
to be approved. And the Department of Homeland Security just
announced that they are not renewing parole for people who
are already in the United States. So people from those
four countries who were in the US head up to
(19:50):
two years of humanitarian parole, which is not being renewed,
so they either would need to apply for something else
or go back to their country, or just I guess,
stay in the it stints undocumented until their codavy.
Speaker 1 (20:34):
I heard the same story hundreds of times that week,
sometimes off mike and sometimes on mike, sometimes holding my
voice recorder and notebook, sometimes just sitting on the ground
or walking on the trail or enjoying a bottle of
cold water in Bahjigito. Crippling poverty and bad governance in
their country made it difficult to see a future there.
They wanted better for their children, so they bought them
(20:56):
across the mountains and risked their lives in the jungle
to give them a chance. And I prepared a lot
for this trip, and I tried to search for everything
I my experience on the internet. But one thing I
really didn't expect to learn in the jungle is just
how much it's possible for parents to love their kids.
I watched exhausted mothers hoist their babies onto their shoulders
to keep walking, and somehow come up with a story
(21:17):
that made the whole thing an adventure, not a tragedy.
Then did the same thing again the next day, without
sleeping or eating. I watch fathers carefully lay out their
sleeping map so that children could rest where they tried
to do the same on the dirt or hardwood floors
every day as their savings grew low and they out
looked more bleak, I watched parents try to smile for
their kids. The sacrifices I saw them make, starving for
(21:40):
days to give their kids something to eat, or spending
their last remaining dollar on clean clothes for their kids
while they walked barefoot and couldn't afford shoes really brought
home for me the desire these families had for a
better future and the sacrifices they were willing to make
for one Another. Week later, it's still hard for me
to accept that I'm home safely and they're still in
as much danger, if not more.
Speaker 8 (22:04):
Our walk lasted five days. Thank god I was always
strong enough and able to get back up when I fell,
because if I fell and my children had to see
me fall and not get up, imagine how bad that
would be. My children want more in the future, but
they despaired in the jungle. They said, tell me, Mommy,
when are we going to get there? Mommy? What could
(22:24):
I say to them? My dear, we have to have
patience because we have to make the crossing. We have
to move forward. If not, we can't get out of here.
Speaker 1 (22:35):
Even among such difficult times, the Venezuelans always greeted me
with a laugh and a smile, especially after a few
days of running into each other. When I use venezuhealen
slang or my accents slowly reverted to the Spanish, and I
learned in Karrakas only two decades ago, they'd laugh at me,
as they noted at that time Karrakas had attracted plenty
of migrants, to recern, some of them, like me, didn't stay,
(22:56):
but we came. We wanted to see a revolution in
the flesh, and they welcomed us. For a while in Caracas,
I lived in a social center in La Pastora. I
didn't pay rent, but there was a small, empty room
and no one seemed to mind. Every day I talked
to strangers, big friends, and try and learn something new.
The situation there was an ideal. For one thing, we
didn't really have showers, and also I got robbed at gunpoint.
(23:17):
So for most of my time in the country, I
stayed with the Chilean family i'd met. They welcomed me
a more or left total stranger into their homes and lives.
In the evenings, we spent hours talking and they'd tell
me stories about how they'd suffered under Pinochet, the hopes
they'd had for their country, and how they'd had to
flee to Caracas like tens of thousands of their fellow Chileans.
(23:37):
They introduced me to Victor Harr and Jody Pan. I
introduced them to chumber Wamba, and we shared an affection
for George Orwell. The song you heard after the adverts
was not in fact chamber Wamba, but Chilean left his
folk musician in Victor Haa. He's playing Eldrecho de vi
videnpaz the right to live in Peace in English, and
it's one of his most famous songs. It confronts the
(23:57):
US War in Vietnam. After how I was tortured and
murdered by the Pinochet regime, it became an anthem of
protest in the country. Haah and his friend Pabu and
the Ruda were both symbols of the cultural power of
the Chilean people and the brutality of the Pinochet regime
who broke the hands He used to play his guitar
before they killed him. Harah and the Rudah both moved
(24:18):
in the same revolutionary artistic circles as my Chilean host
in Venezuela. At night, they tell me stories about the
time they spent together. We'd have to speak loudly as
a man who had adopted me as a sort of
surrogate grandson of permanent hearing damage from the torture he'd
endured under the same regime. Luckily, he'd been able to
flee with his wife to Venezuela, where they were welcomed.
They never returned to Chile and happily lived out the
(24:40):
rest of their lives listening to their Victor Haarra records
in Caracas and living the ideals that had seen them persecuted.
Their kindness to me, a nineteen year old stranger with
terrible Spanish and nowhere to sleep at night, reflected the
kindness they'd received, and I've tried to reflect it in
turn ever since. Oh no, oh, I never once heard
(25:11):
any children crying and last blankets or bar chiquito, well,
not until the deportations took their parents away on my
last day there. Most of the time, the kids entertained
themselves one day in Last Blancas, where migrants can wait
and spend weeks or months they don't have the funds
to move forward with their journey. I left my picture
while she made a call and bumped into some little
children playing a game where they throw water bottle caps
(25:33):
into half a breeze block from various distances, each of
them counting how many they could land. I sat down
next to them, put my recorder on the ground and
asked nicely if I could join them like a tiny
(25:55):
pit boss. One of the kids bought me a pile
of bottle tops, and I chatted with them as we
threw a bottle cap to the broken piece of concrete.
What was it like in America?
Speaker 2 (26:03):
They asked.
Speaker 1 (26:05):
They's had a lot of questions about Africa, having probably
met African kids in the casita just across the way.
Do they have big buildings in Africa? Does it rain there?
How long does it take to get there in a bus?
Then they tested by venezuela and legitimacy by drawing me
in a ripper in my notebook, and I asked him
if I knew what it was, what I passed a test?
They asked me how to say some things in English,
(26:26):
and they showed me the toys they bought with them,
which were very few. One of them had a small
plastic cow of which he was very proud one. After
a while, they asked what I was doing, and I
showed them how I record interviews, at which point they
began recording themselves in each other, wildly stabbing at the
(26:49):
buttons on my recorder, which I will admit scared the
crap out of me, but I didn't have the heart
to take it off them. They stroked the fluffy wim
protector I use on my microphone. It told me it
was like a tiny teddy bear. Eventually I was able
to trade my recorder for several small wooden animals that
brought with me as gifts, which seemed to be a deal.
The left all of us feelings that we come out ahead.
(27:10):
They seemed n't bothered by the suffering around them. But
Las Blancas is no place for children. They should be
in school, learning the English phrases they kept repeating to
me every time I saw them. But for a chance
to use their English, they first had to endure month
more danger and deprivation. I guess Son. Some slightly hold
(27:33):
A children made the journey alone or almost alone. They
were accompanied by a spaniel called Channel. I saw a
future while as people are carried with them through the
day and gap. But to my analysis, is the first
spaniel that has made the treacherous Crossingezuela.
Speaker 9 (27:52):
Luela.
Speaker 1 (27:57):
Like everyone else, they had terrible memories from the jung.
Speaker 10 (28:02):
The truth is you have to fight a lot to
be able to get out of there, because not everyone
gets out of that jungle, and it's even more difficult
with small children. There are times when one goes without
food and it's very stressful because all around us all
we saw was the jungle, and we never saw the
way out. But it is complicated. The truth is that
(28:23):
it is very hard the jungle. Well, I would really
recommend that people never go there. All our feet are hurting,
we can't walk properly. Our whole body is hurt. We
went days without eating.
Speaker 1 (28:36):
They were traveling. They said to join their parents, and
because in Venezuela they told me they were always hungry.
They saw people sleeping on the streets and worried that
would be their only option. One day they didn't leave.
Speaker 10 (28:49):
I want to see mom. I haven't seen her in
three years, and I want to have my American dream too.
Speaker 11 (28:56):
I want to see my dad, my aunt and my uncle.
I haven't seen them for three years either.
Speaker 1 (29:01):
Despite the hard yet they didn't blame their parents for leaving.
Speaker 11 (29:05):
We know that we made it because of them. They're
the ones who sent us money for the things we need.
We were able to get a few things, not everything
we needed, but it's all thanks to them.
Speaker 1 (29:15):
The end of their interview, as I always do, I
asked them if there's anything else that they wanted to share.
Speaker 7 (29:20):
I don't know. For our parents, we love them a
lot and hope we can see them soon.
Speaker 1 (29:36):
Like many of the Venezuelan's I spoke to, their American
dreams were pretty modest for most of them, though they'll
be unachievable in the current immigration system. They'll end up
stuck in Mexico, in Mexico City perhaps for further south,
but in Tijuana or Juaro's waiting across the border of
They're lucky, but if they cried across between ports of entry,
we'll get caught traveling without red string. In Mexico, they
(29:58):
were being deported or relocated back to southern Mexico, Hesatica
explaining that process.
Speaker 6 (30:03):
The Mexican National Guard has been detaining people who are
trying to cross the US medical border, and they had
been sending them south to Mexico City and Chiapas to Tapachula.
Now there's been this huge effort to stop people from waiting,
not only at the US Mexico border, but even in
Mexco City. So we're seeing Mexican Immigration and National Guard
(30:28):
doing sweeps of migrant camps, of apartment buildings, doesn't matter
if the person has a CVP one appointment. Sometimes they'll
just send them souths to either Chiapa's an increasing lead
to Basco. So Vie at Mossa, which is where people
are arriving in Tabasco, has one shelter and I think
the capacity is around two hundred and fifty three hundred people,
(30:50):
and earlier this year they were sending twenty thousand migrants
a month there and then they posted the military ships
so that people can't leave, and it's very dangerous there.
It's a drug tracking area, so it's you know, not
only are people sleeping in the streets, but they're sleeping
on the streets of some of the most dangerous cities
and massacre win very few services there to help them
(31:11):
even get their next meal.
Speaker 1 (31:13):
This, of course, didn't happen without the inmfluence of the
United States. In many ways, Joe Biden has done exactly
what Donald Trump promised to do. Not only has he
built more wall, he's also forced Mexico to pay for
a significant amount of the US's immigration enforcement. But when
people are sent back to the south of Mexico, they'll
just make their way north again, only this time with
fewer resources and even greater risk. They're all proud of
(31:35):
where they're from. About half the groups I saw had
Venezuela flags and the cats or backpacks, but they're also
very aware of the betrayal they get as Venezuelan's in
the US media, and many of them made the very
valid point if American is afraid of Venezuela gangs, they
ought to consider how much more afraid people are in
a country where they actually exist.
Speaker 12 (31:52):
Yahvencelanma parazon is and female.
Speaker 7 (31:59):
I'm thirteen. Please don't believe that because one person from
Venezuela does crime, that all Venezuelans do crime.
Speaker 1 (32:06):
But at least they get it betrayed in the US media.
Many African migrants don't even get that. Of course, it
doesn't mean they don't know about the USA his powers
in her anglophant Cameronian group again talking about their impressions
of America where they'd like to live when they arrive here.
Speaker 9 (32:22):
You know, America is a very beautiful country, and America
has human rights, take care about the citizens. In fact,
they care about humanity. See, I don't want to have
a friend that I'm gonna stay with for the meantime.
Speaker 1 (32:36):
Then it gets that's great. Yeah, that helps a lot.
Do you know which city your friend lives in?
Speaker 9 (32:42):
She's in Maryland, Maryland? Okay, yeah, So if I'm asks,
if you don't mind me asking, of course, what do Americans?
How do they treat or how do they say immigrants?
Speaker 1 (32:55):
Oh, my friend, it's changing a lot. African migrants in
particular will struggle with a lack of resources. The absence
of solidarity structures an obvious anti blackness along the journey.
Along with this, people they meet along the way simply
lack context of their journeys and why they're leaving what
they're fleeing. Language barriers may exclude many of them from
using CBP one which is only offered English, Spanish and
(33:17):
Haitian Creole. Less than fifteen percent of asylum cases are
conducted in English, but the app ignores huge swass of
the world outside the Western Hemisphere. And by Jiquito, I
used French to speak to minor student's speak English and
began to notice the complete absence of signage. And I
think other than Spanish and sometimes English and Creole, this
is likely an issue throughout their long journeys. Here's one
(33:39):
migrant from Angola, and I should probably know at this
point that Angolan people tend to speak Portuguese, that's a
national language. But French, with the language I shared with
some of them, as I don't speak Portuguese, pretty complete.
Speaker 13 (33:53):
It was too much, very complicated. Like me, I did
a week in Brazil, at Brazil and for par Peru
to nicol Klee. Then here I did. We did four days,
four days walking. There are many mountains, many risks, there
are many animals along the route. You have to follow
the path for four days and there's no food. But
(34:16):
we are glad to arrive today. This is the first group.
There's the second, third, fourth, fifth group. They're still on
the road. I'm very proud of the fact that we
made it despite the suffering. But God was with us.
That is what is important.
Speaker 1 (34:33):
There are numerous instances of French speaking migrants trying to
approach the border near me in scis Cedra and being
turned away for not having an appointment on that that's
not available in a language they can understand. These language
barriers might stop the migrants getting information, but they don't
stop them helping one another. His powers group describing the
isolation they felt, but also the kindness they experienced. Do
(34:53):
you think people on the trip treat African people differently?
Speaker 9 (34:57):
Yes, they're not living communicated. They are just by themselves.
They don't associate. They look at all differently. Yeah, client
personally art I had some more support.
Speaker 1 (35:12):
Yeah, yeah, I saw.
Speaker 4 (35:14):
I saw how kind the person was.
Speaker 1 (35:17):
Because of their obvious foreignness and perceived an ability to communicate.
African migrants are often targeted for crime in Mexico. Since
leaving Panama, I've heard from migrants who are raped, kidnapped, ransomed,
and I even heard about one who was killed Because
of their difficulties accessing this CVP one app Many face
longer weights in Mexico, which may in turn leave them
(35:39):
open to extortion or see them decide to cross the
border between ports of entry. I've met hundreds of migrants,
mainly Mauritanians and Geneians, who have made this difficult choice.
Since Biden's Asylent Bank came into force. Due to the distance,
African migrants also face a longer, more expensive, and more
dangerous journey. His premier from Zimbabwe, describing her journey, has
(36:00):
to get about the situation.
Speaker 12 (36:02):
For me, it was tough. I just ran away to
South Africa and South Africa was not safe. Solophobia and
they almost kill me and my boyfriend and even my
my big father was abusive, too much agressive because of
(36:25):
the politics. I'm opposition party, so it was now even
in South Africa, I was not safe at all. It
was those people, they were like following me and my daughter.
So I spent three months on the road coming here.
I leave South Africa, I think fourth of July till
(36:48):
now I'm in Panama. I'm still working using basses.
Speaker 1 (36:53):
Jesus, how did you get away from Africa to America?
Did you fly or take a boat?
Speaker 12 (36:59):
The thing is I f from Juannspek to Brazil. Then
I seek asylum in Brazil. Then I wanted to stay
in Brazil, so people said no, ye in Brazil, you
can't because of language. Yeah, yeah, Portuguese. So I start
also using depots root like you list take this pass
(37:21):
from point A to point BA. So we take a
bus from Brazil to Bolivia, then from Bolivia to Peru,
Peru to Equad to Colombia. Then you start working with
using Darren Cape too. I'm here in Panama.
Speaker 1 (37:35):
African migrants will end up in different shelters, a little
more remote, will have less connectivity, again, making their asylum
process harder. Unlike migrants from the Western Hemisphere, they might
struggle to find solidarity networks even inside the USA without
a significant diaspora. Many of the migrants I met the
jungle have struggled to find sponsors. That's the people I
spoke to here, including Primerose and her daughter, still looking
(37:58):
for someone to give them a helping hand as they
start their new life. We spoke a lot over the
WEEKO is there, and we've spoken most days since. It's
heartbreaking for me to see her daughter going for months
with our education or even a safe place to sleep.
I've seen photos of them sleeping on the street They've
ridden crowded busses north, and I've heard their frustrated attempts
to comply with the arcane and complicated restrictions on their
(38:21):
right to come here and ask for help. And it's
been really hard since I got home to reconcile this
with a national discussion that seems to see migration as
a number that we have to decrease a migrants to
something other than people who want to come here for
all the same reasons. I live happily and peaceably as
our neighbors. Now that they've come this far, maggants from
outside the Western Hemisphere have to keep going. They can't
(38:43):
even file their claims on CBP one until they make
it to Tapatula, which is hundreds of dollars and thousands
of kilometers from Panama. They likely don't have the funds
to go back home even if they want to, and
they are far more likely to be robbed or kidnapped
along the way. However, their story is often aren't told.
Reporting on the board is still largely focused on Spanish
speaking migrants, with some space for Chinese or Haitians. The
(39:06):
migrants from Africa rarely get much care or attention in
the media. In part this has helped them before the
demonization the Venezuelan migrants are all too aware of, but
in part it also leads to a lack of concern
for their needs. I went to end today was Gabriel
from Equatorial Guinea sharing his message for Americans.
Speaker 14 (39:25):
Ah Aca know as Yeah, A lot of people get
this confused. Africa is not a country. A lot of
them think when they see you and you're black person,
they say, are you African? And it's like, there are
lots of countries in Africa, Ghana, Nigeria, you got, Guinea,
(39:51):
you got the more Atanian people. There are loads of countries.
I wish people would know.
Speaker 2 (39:57):
How do I say this?
Speaker 14 (39:58):
I wish they'd take us into a count because really
they don't consider us when they say Africa is a country.
They don't care about us the way we care about them.
And this is the way of seeing things which doesn't
consider us as human, not the same as them. You understand,
they see us as Africans or animals, something like that.
Speaker 10 (40:24):
It could happen.
Speaker 7 (40:25):
Here is a production of cool Zone Media.
Speaker 10 (40:27):
For more podcasts from cool Zone Media, visit our website
coolzonemedia dot com or check us out on the iHeartRadio app,
Apple podcasts, or wherever.
Speaker 8 (40:35):
You listen to podcasts.
Speaker 10 (40:37):
You can now find sources for it could happen here,
listed directly in episode descriptions. Thanks for listening,
All media. It's me James, and before we listen to
this episode today, I just did want to make you
a way that I conducted these interviews in French and Spanish,
mostly Spanish, and then transcribed and translated them. So what
you're hearing is a translated interview that's being edited for
brevity and content. I hope you enjoyed the episode.
Speaker 2 (00:26):
LVY awesome. Yeah, the journey is dangerous, but what can
we do. We can't stay in a country where the
economy is getting worse and worse. With a salary of
three dollars a month, you can't survive. Like my friend said,
if you have a job in other countries, maybe you
(00:47):
can invest some money. But where are you going to
get the money to invest If before you had a
salary that fed you paid for your car, your house
and your children to enjoy it all with, and now
you can't even afford to put gas in the car.
So it's true. Yeah, the darien is dangerous, but nothing
is impossible. We walk hand in hand with God and
(01:07):
with the faith that we will get there. But that
doesn't mean it isn't difficult. But I'll say it again,
it's not impossible. You suffer, you cry, you go hungry cold,
but thank God we made it through.
Speaker 1 (01:27):
Bored around the Tuquesa River, the jungle rumbles quiet as
you pass by on your boat. Insects, frogs, and birds
all combined to make a sort of deep throbbing that
emanates from the darkness between the trees. It seems it
wants to be calling you in and warning you to
stay away. I've been in the jungle before, in the
Rwanda Congo borderlands and in Venezuela, but I've never really
(01:50):
felt the sense of foreboding I did as we rode
down the river, protected only by our hollow log, looking
into the triple canopy forest, and knowing that if I
walk long enough in the shadows, I'd be confronted with
the remains of people I might have interviewed if it
hadn't been for a rolled ankle, a slippery rock, or
a desperate sip of water. To understand what drives people
to enter the jungle with their children and their dreams,
(02:12):
I think we also have to understand what drives them
to leave wherever they're living. And that's what I want
to talk about today, the story of migrants crossing the
Daddy and gap is an American one. It's impossible to
disentangle the people making this dangerous journey from the history
of support for dictatorship sanctions, an imperial plunder that ties
the United States to its American brothers and sisters in
the South. Sometimes I play a game with myself at
(02:34):
the border where I try and meet people from all
the countries named in Washington bullets in a single day.
Since Biden bungled the Afghanistan withdraw, it's become a lot easier,
but Tibet can be hard. For two hundred years, since
President Monroe gave the State of the Union address in
December eighteen twenty three, the US has seen the Western
hemisphere is its sphere of influence. What is opposed old
(02:55):
fashioned colonialism. It has used less avert methods of control,
as well as overt military across the hemisphere. For much
of the last century, it supported and installed dictators who
would prevent what it saw as a threat of state
socialism in its sphere of influence, and allowed them to
create economic and political climates that were unsurvivable for the
majority and extremely profitable for US based corporations. The direct
(03:18):
result of this policy has been economic insecurity, political instability,
and state violence across South and Central America, resulting in
people making the very natural humor decision to flee to
somewhere safer. As in so many other empires, they've made
the choice to lead a destabilized colonial periphery and seek
safety instability in the metropol For more than a century,
(03:39):
money and good to be able to travel seamlessly up
and down the continent, but people have not. The bananaread
for breakfast this morning made the journey in a few days,
but people take months, if not years, pay thousands of dollars,
climb mountains ford rivers, and risk their lives on trains
and buses that cost a lot more than the flights
I took to Panama, but offered considerably less comfort and safety.
(04:01):
As climate change has have a greater impacts, more and
more people are forced to leave their homes so their
livelihoods become less sustainable. The Guna, the indigenous people at
the Panamanian coast, in an area called Guna Yala, are
having to withdraw from some of their islands because of
sea level rise. Right now, agriculture across the world is
increasingly threatened by extreme weather and rising temperatures, and our
(04:22):
oceans are less they're able to sustain life than they
once were due to pollution and overfishing. Forced to leave
their homes as people have been for millennia by weather
patterns changing, people head to places that have want to
caused much of the issue and tried to insulate themselves
from its consequences. Their American dreams are modest to overcome
the crippling low paid. They received a home to bring
(04:45):
their children up in a place where they have a
good chance of surviving their twenties, to work and get
paid enough to get by. They want to be able
to protest and not get shot, and to look forward
to the future not feared. These aren't guaranteed in the USA,
and as many of you listening will know, it can
be high for us to make ends meet here as well.
But despite what you see on social and legacy media,
(05:05):
things are unlikely to become as bad here as they
are in Venezuela, Cameroon or Iran anytime soon. I've lived
in Venezuela, specifically in the formerly jab eastern neighborhood of
La Pastora in Caracas, and I've seen how hard it
is for my friends who still live there. Even for
people with no other disadvantages, making rent and feeding your
family can be a challenge. That's part of why Venezuelan
(05:26):
people make up the majority of the folks I met
men daddian so much so that I'd slipped back into
using Venezuelan slang in Spanish, and after a few days
of seeing the same people engaging in the kind of
friendly mockery and banter that I remember well from Caracas,
mostly the super form of asking them why they crossed
a Daddian gap in Man United shirts or worse yet,
in a Chelsea shit. It's important to steal moments of
(05:47):
humor in these difficult times, to laugh a little among
all the suffering, and that's something people in Venezuela have
done very well for a very long time. But despite
their humor, I could tell the journey had a serious
impact on the people I spoke to.
Speaker 3 (06:03):
You have to go through a lot, a lot of jungle,
a lot of hills. There are people, there are dead
people on the road, so it's something you cannot really explain.
It's complicated because everything can be explained in a fashion,
but it's not the same as living it. It's insanity.
Three four days with that food and nothing. One thing
is to live it. Explaining it, talking about it, that's different.
(06:27):
It's hard to put into words.
Speaker 1 (06:29):
This interview is when I conducted with one group of
Venezuelan migrants with my voice recorder in the chest pocket
of my shirt and whatever bags it let me carry
in my hands. We walked along the last part of
the trail, discussing what they'd seen. For a while, we
joked a little. One guy had crossed it a man
United ship. I talked to him about the team and
the universal dislike non Manu fans have for Menu fans.
(06:50):
Then after a while they opened up more about their experiences.
They had, they said, seen their bodies, and they couldn't
stop thinking about what happened if they had for them,
and they wanted to know how when or if the
dead people's family would ever find out.
Speaker 4 (07:07):
The family waits for that person to come out to
hear that they made it, because if not, who's going
to let you know? There's no signal and nobody's going
to grab the body, and you're not going to carry
them out. The person stays there and eventually years and
years go by and the family won't know where they
are or how they died. Those are the sort of
things that one doesn't expect to see, and it makes
(07:28):
you just want to hurry past. Not that you wouldn't
want to get the documentation from the body and deliver
it and tell them how this person had passed away,
But how dare you just go grabbing a dead body?
Speaker 1 (07:39):
Nethuinan elections were held on the twenty eighth of July
this year. Venezuelan pressions have a six year term and
the incumbent, the Colasma Duro, has been in office since
twenty thirty. I let the Venezuelan people and that introduce
themselves and explain the result of the election. Now there's
a bit of background noise here, but that's because we're
walking on the trails and it's hard to avoid.
Speaker 2 (08:02):
I am coming from Venezuela, migrating through the jungle for
a better future for me and my children. I'll tell
you it's hard, but it's not impossible. No, that was
electoral fraud. And I tell you what, one day, you
just have to leave.
Speaker 1 (08:17):
Maduro was opposed by A Juardo Gonzalez, an opposite candidate
who represented a wide coalition in creating groups on the
left and right. While Maduro might have support among Western
socialists and even communists, the actual Venezuelan Communist Parties youth
organization formed part of the Popular Democratic Front that opposed him.
Despite Paul Watchers tallying a massive victory for the opposition,
(08:38):
Moduro controls the National Lecture Council and proclaimed himself the victor.
People protested, and Maduro responded with bullets. Gonzales fled to
the Dutch and then the Spanish embassy, and later claimed
asylum in Spain, where his family lived. But for regular
working class Venezuelan's there's no option to hop on a
flight to safety. Instead, they have to be in the
(09:00):
long walk north, as many Venezuelans in respect you told me.
In addition to the electoral fraud, Venezuela is undergoing an
economic collapse, at least in the Chavis. He said, most
people could eat. When I lived in La Pastora, I
was able to access medical care from Cuban doctors. Now
they say things have become a Survivaldo.
Speaker 5 (09:19):
So you're Venezuela. When Venezuela, well, I would say that Venezuela,
(09:40):
you know, yeah, you can live but not on a
minimum wage.
Speaker 3 (09:44):
I would say that, for example, working independently in an
independent business, maybe you can live good. But working and
surviving for a minimum wage now, the truth is that
it doesn't work, and that's serious. Things are still bad
with the new elections and the new government. Everything is ugly.
Speaker 5 (10:02):
Yeah.
Speaker 3 (10:03):
The streets of Caracas are full of protests. Every day.
People went out to protest. Sometimes they shoot people. The
government mistreats people. But if you can live with it,
and you can live with it it's ugly. Well, that
is why we left there for a better future, and
we will keep moving onward onward.
Speaker 1 (10:22):
This group were young men traveling in advance with their families,
hoping to earn some money, save it up, and send
it home. They knew what they were getting into when
they got to the USA, that migrants were often underpaid
and might struggle to make ends meet, but they still
thought it was better than staying home and watching your
children's future disappear.
Speaker 4 (10:42):
If you don't have papers, you don't have a work permit,
you have to work for it. They want to pay you,
not for what you demand or anything.
Speaker 1 (10:49):
I met lots of Venezuela families with children who had
different illnesses or disabilities, things they couldn't obtain or afford
treatment for in Venezuela. They were traveling to the US
in the hopes of a better future for their kids,
or any future at all. I met young men who
left their children behind but carried the children of strangers,
even those with whom they didn't share a language. Christian,
(11:10):
who he heard from earlier, showed me how he'd carried
someone else's child on his shoulders until he fell and
hurt his knee.
Speaker 6 (11:17):
We all help.
Speaker 3 (11:17):
I put little children up here on my shoulders to
carry them, but it isn't easy.
Speaker 1 (11:21):
In the jungle, they'd formed chains using their arms to
cross rivers and carried little children on those who couldn't swim.
In Barji Guito, I saw a group of men from
Angola receiving hugs from Venezuela and women they'd helped in
the jungle. Without the help of the Angolans, they said
their children wouldn't have made it. One slip or a
loss of grip, they told me, would be fatal, and
the remains of those who had done just that served
(11:42):
as a grisly reminder. Later, little boys, maybe eight or
ten years old gleefully recounted seeing a dead body on
which the head had quote exploded while their parents winked
in recollection. I wanted to understand a bit more of
what they were fleeing. That made it worth going through
all this.
Speaker 5 (12:01):
Venezuela.
Speaker 7 (12:03):
Well, I left Venezuela because I worked in fishing. But
right now in Venezuela, despite the fact that it is
a country rich and oil, there's not enough gasoline for
the fishermen to go fishing. And since I did not
have the ability to even buy basic things such as food,
the situation was, well, it was a little complicated. I
had to immigrate. I had nothing else to do. They
(12:25):
didn't rob me, well, they were going to rob me
because I didn't have anything to steal. We passed by
and the group that was behind us got robbed. They
raped women in that group.
Speaker 1 (12:37):
Almost every Venezuelan micro and I speG to share a
similar story. One said he didn't stare security cameras, but
nobody could afford them now, as it had to choose
between rent and groceries or medical procedures that they needed
but couldn't afford. Overwhelmingly they said the same thing. No aifuturo,
there's no future. One group said to me that they
couldn't wait for their country to become like Cuba, as
(12:57):
decades of embargos took their toll on the population. But
others reminded me in them that least of Cubans seem
to have doctors. Venezuela has an eighty percent poverty right now,
and though it sits on one of the largest oil
reserves of any country on Earth, it's been plagued by
planting oil prices in the years of hyperinflation, which got
so bad at one point the shots stopped putting price
tags on things and relied on staff to give up
(13:19):
to the minute prices. Today, alongside a regime that lacks legitimacy,
a state that readily uses horrific violence against its people,
an election that was essentially ignored, Venezuelan's must also deal
with shortages of basic goods, poverty, and malnutrition. Unlike Cubans
who have a relatively good polittal lobby in the USA,
Venezuelan's coming to the USA do not benefit from special laws.
(13:41):
Cubans under the Cuban Adjustment Act have a part of
the citizenship and permanence once they set foot on US soil.
Venezuelans do not. They're covered by something called a temporary
protected status, but this does not afford them much in
the way of stability, protection, or a secure future. His
Ereka Pinhidro of Alotolado and Incredible organization does valuable work
with migrant legal aid advocacy and humanitarian relief, explaining just
(14:04):
how temporary a TPS is.
Speaker 6 (14:06):
So temporary protected status is it's basically a form of
protecting individuals who are already in the United States when
their countries have experienced a natural disaster, if they are
in war, there's some kind of situation going on that
makes it difficult for them to return, and so temporary
(14:28):
protected status was first created in nineteen ninety and the
first individuals who receive the status were from El Salvador,
and since then, I think there's been a few dozen
countries that have been designated. But basically the way it
works is they designate a country and so if you
were in the United States before that designation date, you
(14:50):
can apply for temporary protected status within a designated time
period and you get a work permit. It's valid for six,
twelve or eighteen months and then two months before it expires,
the Secretary of the Department of holand Security has to
say whether or not they're going to reauthorize GPS. So
(15:13):
there's like eight hundred and sixty thousand people in the
US who have temporary protected status and it's not a
path to citizenship. So basically people are just in limbo
sometimes for decades, you know, they just have to reapply
for this permit every eighteen months. So I have quite
a few salvador and friends who've been in the United
(15:36):
States since the nineties. They have kids, some of them
current kids, or a US citizen, and they can't become
permanent residents or have a path the citizenship unless they
leave the country and either come back with another type
of parole or you know, apply through a consulate, which
many of them are just not willing to take that risk.
Speaker 1 (15:55):
Well, makes things even more complicated for the Venezuelans is
that many of them are traveling without document. It costs
three hundred bucks to get a passport, they told me,
and the weight's considerable. This makes their journeys even harder
as every country the enter has to approve them to
without a passport. Getting a visa, they said would be
nearly impossible, and just trying that result in the government
coming after them. Such things, they said, are reserved for
(16:19):
the wealthier citizens, people like Gonzales, who's asylum claim and
stays at the Dutch and Spanish embassies, and his right
to join his family in exile are all luxuries that
most of his country people can't expect. Instead, most Venezuelans
must ride buses through Columbia, then walk north through the jungle,
then ride buses stir away on trains, or walk again
all the way to the border. They all lamented the
(16:40):
Dadian crossing and so they wouldn't advise it without other options.
They all made it anyway, community.
Speaker 4 (16:51):
See, because because unfortunately we don't have much in our country.
You don't have another option. When you're dying of hunger
and you don't have a future, you can't even study.
So yeah, it's worth it.
Speaker 1 (17:12):
The economic situation is dire in Venezuela. Many families can't
make end me, their currency is almost worth us, and
the majority government seems to have successfully installed itself for
the foreseeable future. This will mean a continuation of embargos
and sanctions, which will harm the people more than the regime. Sadly, though,
economic hardships is not a criteria which won't be grounded
asylum in the usah Erica.
Speaker 6 (17:33):
Again, so severe economic deprivation can be persecution if it's
linked to one of the other protege grounds, so race, religion, nationality,
political opinion, or membership, but in a particular social group. So
for example, if someone participated in anti Maduro political activity
(17:55):
and then we're blocked from getting a job or just
denied economic opportunities to the point where they're starving, the
economic deprivation could count as persecution, but it's a very
difficult case to make in the United States. In Mexico,
you can get protection based on generalized conditions in your country,
(18:17):
and so you know, Venezuelans betweeing economic collapse or even
Central Americans fleeing extreme violence have a much easier time
dating protection in Mexico than they would in the United
States because of that kind of extra category of protection
in Mexico. The issue with Mexico is just the very
(18:37):
limited capacity of this islum system overall, and the very
dangerous conditions in which people are forced to wait while
their cases are judicated.
Speaker 1 (18:45):
Going forward from the Dadian, they'll face an enormously difficult journey.
The US does have a program for Cubans, Venezuelan and
Haitians and Nicaraguans, then in theory allows them to apply,
be pre approved and fly straight to the USA, but
it's so delayed and it's just not an option for
people who barely have enough money for food, let learn
a plane ticket there.
Speaker 6 (19:05):
This HMV program is for Cumanations, nick Garaguans, Venezuelans who
have not crossed into Panama or Mexico in the past
few years. You do not qualify who've done that or
have not been inter died at sea. If they're Haitian
or Cuban, you have to have a sponsor in the
United States who have some kind of legal status. You
(19:27):
have to be able to pay for the flight, you
have to have a passport, and you have to be
able to wait forever long it takes for your application
to be approved. And the Department of Homeland Security just
announced that they are not renewing parole for people who
are already in the United States. So people from those
four countries who were in the US head up to
(19:50):
two years of humanitarian parole, which is not being renewed,
so they either would need to apply for something else
or go back to their country, or just I guess,
stay in the it stints undocumented until their codavy.
Speaker 1 (20:34):
I heard the same story hundreds of times that week,
sometimes off mike and sometimes on mike, sometimes holding my
voice recorder and notebook, sometimes just sitting on the ground
or walking on the trail or enjoying a bottle of
cold water in Bahjigito. Crippling poverty and bad governance in
their country made it difficult to see a future there.
They wanted better for their children, so they bought them
(20:56):
across the mountains and risked their lives in the jungle
to give them a chance. And I prepared a lot
for this trip, and I tried to search for everything
I my experience on the internet. But one thing I
really didn't expect to learn in the jungle is just
how much it's possible for parents to love their kids.
I watched exhausted mothers hoist their babies onto their shoulders
to keep walking, and somehow come up with a story
(21:17):
that made the whole thing an adventure, not a tragedy.
Then did the same thing again the next day, without
sleeping or eating. I watch fathers carefully lay out their
sleeping map so that children could rest where they tried
to do the same on the dirt or hardwood floors
every day as their savings grew low and they out
looked more bleak, I watched parents try to smile for
their kids. The sacrifices I saw them make, starving for
(21:40):
days to give their kids something to eat, or spending
their last remaining dollar on clean clothes for their kids
while they walked barefoot and couldn't afford shoes really brought
home for me the desire these families had for a
better future and the sacrifices they were willing to make
for one Another. Week later, it's still hard for me
to accept that I'm home safely and they're still in
as much danger, if not more.
Speaker 8 (22:04):
Our walk lasted five days. Thank god I was always
strong enough and able to get back up when I fell,
because if I fell and my children had to see
me fall and not get up, imagine how bad that
would be. My children want more in the future, but
they despaired in the jungle. They said, tell me, Mommy,
when are we going to get there? Mommy? What could
(22:24):
I say to them? My dear, we have to have
patience because we have to make the crossing. We have
to move forward. If not, we can't get out of here.
Speaker 1 (22:35):
Even among such difficult times, the Venezuelans always greeted me
with a laugh and a smile, especially after a few
days of running into each other. When I use venezuhealen
slang or my accents slowly reverted to the Spanish, and I
learned in Karrakas only two decades ago, they'd laugh at me,
as they noted at that time Karrakas had attracted plenty
of migrants, to recern, some of them, like me, didn't stay,
(22:56):
but we came. We wanted to see a revolution in
the flesh, and they welcomed us. For a while in Caracas,
I lived in a social center in La Pastora. I
didn't pay rent, but there was a small, empty room
and no one seemed to mind. Every day I talked
to strangers, big friends, and try and learn something new.
The situation there was an ideal. For one thing, we
didn't really have showers, and also I got robbed at gunpoint.
(23:17):
So for most of my time in the country, I
stayed with the Chilean family i'd met. They welcomed me
a more or left total stranger into their homes and lives.
In the evenings, we spent hours talking and they'd tell
me stories about how they'd suffered under Pinochet, the hopes
they'd had for their country, and how they'd had to
flee to Caracas like tens of thousands of their fellow Chileans.
(23:37):
They introduced me to Victor Harr and Jody Pan. I
introduced them to chumber Wamba, and we shared an affection
for George Orwell. The song you heard after the adverts
was not in fact chamber Wamba, but Chilean left his
folk musician in Victor Haa. He's playing Eldrecho de vi
videnpaz the right to live in Peace in English, and
it's one of his most famous songs. It confronts the
(23:57):
US War in Vietnam. After how I was tortured and
murdered by the Pinochet regime, it became an anthem of
protest in the country. Haah and his friend Pabu and
the Ruda were both symbols of the cultural power of
the Chilean people and the brutality of the Pinochet regime
who broke the hands He used to play his guitar
before they killed him. Harah and the Rudah both moved
(24:18):
in the same revolutionary artistic circles as my Chilean host
in Venezuela. At night, they tell me stories about the
time they spent together. We'd have to speak loudly as
a man who had adopted me as a sort of
surrogate grandson of permanent hearing damage from the torture he'd
endured under the same regime. Luckily, he'd been able to
flee with his wife to Venezuela, where they were welcomed.
They never returned to Chile and happily lived out the
(24:40):
rest of their lives listening to their Victor Haarra records
in Caracas and living the ideals that had seen them persecuted.
Their kindness to me, a nineteen year old stranger with
terrible Spanish and nowhere to sleep at night, reflected the
kindness they'd received, and I've tried to reflect it in
turn ever since. Oh no, oh, I never once heard
(25:11):
any children crying and last blankets or bar chiquito, well,
not until the deportations took their parents away on my
last day there. Most of the time, the kids entertained
themselves one day in Last Blancas, where migrants can wait
and spend weeks or months they don't have the funds
to move forward with their journey. I left my picture
while she made a call and bumped into some little
children playing a game where they throw water bottle caps
(25:33):
into half a breeze block from various distances, each of
them counting how many they could land. I sat down
next to them, put my recorder on the ground and
asked nicely if I could join them like a tiny
(25:55):
pit boss. One of the kids bought me a pile
of bottle tops, and I chatted with them as we
threw a bottle cap to the broken piece of concrete.
What was it like in America?
Speaker 2 (26:03):
They asked.
Speaker 1 (26:05):
They's had a lot of questions about Africa, having probably
met African kids in the casita just across the way.
Do they have big buildings in Africa? Does it rain there?
How long does it take to get there in a bus?
Then they tested by venezuela and legitimacy by drawing me
in a ripper in my notebook, and I asked him
if I knew what it was, what I passed a test?
They asked me how to say some things in English,
(26:26):
and they showed me the toys they bought with them,
which were very few. One of them had a small
plastic cow of which he was very proud one. After
a while, they asked what I was doing, and I
showed them how I record interviews, at which point they
began recording themselves in each other, wildly stabbing at the
(26:49):
buttons on my recorder, which I will admit scared the
crap out of me, but I didn't have the heart
to take it off them. They stroked the fluffy wim
protector I use on my microphone. It told me it
was like a tiny teddy bear. Eventually I was able
to trade my recorder for several small wooden animals that
brought with me as gifts, which seemed to be a deal.
The left all of us feelings that we come out ahead.
(27:10):
They seemed n't bothered by the suffering around them. But
Las Blancas is no place for children. They should be
in school, learning the English phrases they kept repeating to
me every time I saw them. But for a chance
to use their English, they first had to endure month
more danger and deprivation. I guess Son. Some slightly hold
(27:33):
A children made the journey alone or almost alone. They
were accompanied by a spaniel called Channel. I saw a
future while as people are carried with them through the
day and gap. But to my analysis, is the first
spaniel that has made the treacherous Crossingezuela.
Speaker 9 (27:52):
Luela.
Speaker 1 (27:57):
Like everyone else, they had terrible memories from the jung.
Speaker 10 (28:02):
The truth is you have to fight a lot to
be able to get out of there, because not everyone
gets out of that jungle, and it's even more difficult
with small children. There are times when one goes without
food and it's very stressful because all around us all
we saw was the jungle, and we never saw the
way out. But it is complicated. The truth is that
(28:23):
it is very hard the jungle. Well, I would really
recommend that people never go there. All our feet are hurting,
we can't walk properly. Our whole body is hurt. We
went days without eating.
Speaker 1 (28:36):
They were traveling. They said to join their parents, and
because in Venezuela they told me they were always hungry.
They saw people sleeping on the streets and worried that
would be their only option. One day they didn't leave.
Speaker 10 (28:49):
I want to see mom. I haven't seen her in
three years, and I want to have my American dream too.
Speaker 11 (28:56):
I want to see my dad, my aunt and my uncle.
I haven't seen them for three years either.
Speaker 1 (29:01):
Despite the hard yet they didn't blame their parents for leaving.
Speaker 11 (29:05):
We know that we made it because of them. They're
the ones who sent us money for the things we need.
We were able to get a few things, not everything
we needed, but it's all thanks to them.
Speaker 1 (29:15):
The end of their interview, as I always do, I
asked them if there's anything else that they wanted to share.
Speaker 7 (29:20):
I don't know. For our parents, we love them a
lot and hope we can see them soon.
Speaker 1 (29:36):
Like many of the Venezuelan's I spoke to, their American
dreams were pretty modest for most of them, though they'll
be unachievable in the current immigration system. They'll end up
stuck in Mexico, in Mexico City perhaps for further south,
but in Tijuana or Juaro's waiting across the border of
They're lucky, but if they cried across between ports of entry,
we'll get caught traveling without red string. In Mexico, they
(29:58):
were being deported or relocated back to southern Mexico, Hesatica
explaining that process.
Speaker 6 (30:03):
The Mexican National Guard has been detaining people who are
trying to cross the US medical border, and they had
been sending them south to Mexico City and Chiapas to Tapachula.
Now there's been this huge effort to stop people from waiting,
not only at the US Mexico border, but even in
Mexco City. So we're seeing Mexican Immigration and National Guard
(30:28):
doing sweeps of migrant camps, of apartment buildings, doesn't matter
if the person has a CVP one appointment. Sometimes they'll
just send them souths to either Chiapa's an increasing lead
to Basco. So Vie at Mossa, which is where people
are arriving in Tabasco, has one shelter and I think
the capacity is around two hundred and fifty three hundred people,
(30:50):
and earlier this year they were sending twenty thousand migrants
a month there and then they posted the military ships
so that people can't leave, and it's very dangerous there.
It's a drug tracking area, so it's you know, not
only are people sleeping in the streets, but they're sleeping
on the streets of some of the most dangerous cities
and massacre win very few services there to help them
(31:11):
even get their next meal.
Speaker 1 (31:13):
This, of course, didn't happen without the inmfluence of the
United States. In many ways, Joe Biden has done exactly
what Donald Trump promised to do. Not only has he
built more wall, he's also forced Mexico to pay for
a significant amount of the US's immigration enforcement. But when
people are sent back to the south of Mexico, they'll
just make their way north again, only this time with
fewer resources and even greater risk. They're all proud of
(31:35):
where they're from. About half the groups I saw had
Venezuela flags and the cats or backpacks, but they're also
very aware of the betrayal they get as Venezuelan's in
the US media, and many of them made the very
valid point if American is afraid of Venezuela gangs, they
ought to consider how much more afraid people are in
a country where they actually exist.
Speaker 12 (31:52):
Yahvencelanma parazon is and female.
Speaker 7 (31:59):
I'm thirteen. Please don't believe that because one person from
Venezuela does crime, that all Venezuelans do crime.
Speaker 1 (32:06):
But at least they get it betrayed in the US media.
Many African migrants don't even get that. Of course, it
doesn't mean they don't know about the USA his powers
in her anglophant Cameronian group again talking about their impressions
of America where they'd like to live when they arrive here.
Speaker 9 (32:22):
You know, America is a very beautiful country, and America
has human rights, take care about the citizens. In fact,
they care about humanity. See, I don't want to have
a friend that I'm gonna stay with for the meantime.
Speaker 1 (32:36):
Then it gets that's great. Yeah, that helps a lot.
Do you know which city your friend lives in?
Speaker 9 (32:42):
She's in Maryland, Maryland? Okay, yeah, So if I'm asks,
if you don't mind me asking, of course, what do Americans?
How do they treat or how do they say immigrants?
Speaker 1 (32:55):
Oh, my friend, it's changing a lot. African migrants in
particular will struggle with a lack of resources. The absence
of solidarity structures an obvious anti blackness along the journey.
Along with this, people they meet along the way simply
lack context of their journeys and why they're leaving what
they're fleeing. Language barriers may exclude many of them from
using CBP one which is only offered English, Spanish and
(33:17):
Haitian Creole. Less than fifteen percent of asylum cases are
conducted in English, but the app ignores huge swass of
the world outside the Western Hemisphere. And by Jiquito, I
used French to speak to minor student's speak English and
began to notice the complete absence of signage. And I
think other than Spanish and sometimes English and Creole, this
is likely an issue throughout their long journeys. Here's one
(33:39):
migrant from Angola, and I should probably know at this
point that Angolan people tend to speak Portuguese, that's a
national language. But French, with the language I shared with
some of them, as I don't speak Portuguese, pretty complete.
Speaker 13 (33:53):
It was too much, very complicated. Like me, I did
a week in Brazil, at Brazil and for par Peru
to nicol Klee. Then here I did. We did four days,
four days walking. There are many mountains, many risks, there
are many animals along the route. You have to follow
the path for four days and there's no food. But
(34:16):
we are glad to arrive today. This is the first group.
There's the second, third, fourth, fifth group. They're still on
the road. I'm very proud of the fact that we
made it despite the suffering. But God was with us.
That is what is important.
Speaker 1 (34:33):
There are numerous instances of French speaking migrants trying to
approach the border near me in scis Cedra and being
turned away for not having an appointment on that that's
not available in a language they can understand. These language
barriers might stop the migrants getting information, but they don't
stop them helping one another. His powers group describing the
isolation they felt, but also the kindness they experienced. Do
(34:53):
you think people on the trip treat African people differently?
Speaker 9 (34:57):
Yes, they're not living communicated. They are just by themselves.
They don't associate. They look at all differently. Yeah, client
personally art I had some more support.
Speaker 1 (35:12):
Yeah, yeah, I saw.
Speaker 4 (35:14):
I saw how kind the person was.
Speaker 1 (35:17):
Because of their obvious foreignness and perceived an ability to communicate.
African migrants are often targeted for crime in Mexico. Since
leaving Panama, I've heard from migrants who are raped, kidnapped, ransomed,
and I even heard about one who was killed Because
of their difficulties accessing this CVP one app Many face
longer weights in Mexico, which may in turn leave them
(35:39):
open to extortion or see them decide to cross the
border between ports of entry. I've met hundreds of migrants,
mainly Mauritanians and Geneians, who have made this difficult choice.
Since Biden's Asylent Bank came into force. Due to the distance,
African migrants also face a longer, more expensive, and more
dangerous journey. His premier from Zimbabwe, describing her journey, has
(36:00):
to get about the situation.
Speaker 12 (36:02):
For me, it was tough. I just ran away to
South Africa and South Africa was not safe. Solophobia and
they almost kill me and my boyfriend and even my
my big father was abusive, too much agressive because of
(36:25):
the politics. I'm opposition party, so it was now even
in South Africa, I was not safe at all. It
was those people, they were like following me and my daughter.
So I spent three months on the road coming here.
I leave South Africa, I think fourth of July till
(36:48):
now I'm in Panama. I'm still working using basses.
Speaker 1 (36:53):
Jesus, how did you get away from Africa to America?
Did you fly or take a boat?
Speaker 12 (36:59):
The thing is I f from Juannspek to Brazil. Then
I seek asylum in Brazil. Then I wanted to stay
in Brazil, so people said no, ye in Brazil, you
can't because of language. Yeah, yeah, Portuguese. So I start
also using depots root like you list take this pass
(37:21):
from point A to point BA. So we take a
bus from Brazil to Bolivia, then from Bolivia to Peru,
Peru to Equad to Colombia. Then you start working with
using Darren Cape too. I'm here in Panama.
Speaker 1 (37:35):
African migrants will end up in different shelters, a little
more remote, will have less connectivity, again, making their asylum
process harder. Unlike migrants from the Western Hemisphere, they might
struggle to find solidarity networks even inside the USA without
a significant diaspora. Many of the migrants I met the
jungle have struggled to find sponsors. That's the people I
spoke to here, including Primerose and her daughter, still looking
(37:58):
for someone to give them a helping hand as they
start their new life. We spoke a lot over the
WEEKO is there, and we've spoken most days since. It's
heartbreaking for me to see her daughter going for months
with our education or even a safe place to sleep.
I've seen photos of them sleeping on the street They've
ridden crowded busses north, and I've heard their frustrated attempts
to comply with the arcane and complicated restrictions on their
(38:21):
right to come here and ask for help. And it's
been really hard since I got home to reconcile this
with a national discussion that seems to see migration as
a number that we have to decrease a migrants to
something other than people who want to come here for
all the same reasons. I live happily and peaceably as
our neighbors. Now that they've come this far, maggants from
outside the Western Hemisphere have to keep going. They can't
(38:43):
even file their claims on CBP one until they make
it to Tapatula, which is hundreds of dollars and thousands
of kilometers from Panama. They likely don't have the funds
to go back home even if they want to, and
they are far more likely to be robbed or kidnapped
along the way. However, their story is often aren't told.
Reporting on the board is still largely focused on Spanish
speaking migrants, with some space for Chinese or Haitians. The
(39:06):
migrants from Africa rarely get much care or attention in
the media. In part this has helped them before the
demonization the Venezuelan migrants are all too aware of, but
in part it also leads to a lack of concern
for their needs. I went to end today was Gabriel
from Equatorial Guinea sharing his message for Americans.
Speaker 14 (39:25):
Ah Aca know as Yeah, A lot of people get
this confused. Africa is not a country. A lot of
them think when they see you and you're black person,
they say, are you African? And it's like, there are
lots of countries in Africa, Ghana, Nigeria, you got, Guinea,
(39:51):
you got the more Atanian people. There are loads of countries.
I wish people would know.
Speaker 2 (39:57):
How do I say this?
Speaker 14 (39:58):
I wish they'd take us into a count because really
they don't consider us when they say Africa is a country.
They don't care about us the way we care about them.
And this is the way of seeing things which doesn't
consider us as human, not the same as them. You understand,
they see us as Africans or animals, something like that.
Speaker 10 (40:24):
It could happen.
Speaker 7 (40:25):
Here is a production of cool Zone Media.
Speaker 10 (40:27):
For more podcasts from cool Zone Media, visit our website
coolzonemedia dot com or check us out on the iHeartRadio app,
Apple podcasts, or wherever.
Speaker 8 (40:35):
You listen to podcasts.
Speaker 10 (40:37):
You can now find sources for it could happen here,
listed directly in episode descriptions. Thanks for listening,
It Could Happen Here News
Hosts And Creators
Robert Evans
Garrison Davis
James Stout
Show Links
AboutPopular Podcasts
24/7 News: The Latest
Today’s Latest News In 4 Minutes. Updated Hourly.
Dateline NBC
Current and classic episodes, featuring compelling true-crime mysteries, powerful documentaries and in-depth investigations.
Stuff You Should Know
If you've ever wanted to know about champagne, satanism, the Stonewall Uprising, chaos theory, LSD, El Nino, true crime and Rosa Parks, then look no further. Josh and Chuck have you covered.