"When you try to get work in construction, they ask you for OSHA certification," Freites says. The father of five says he's struggling to find any work at all because he doesn't have the right documents. Dozens of men hang outside the armory at a busy intersection and crowd around reporters with curiosity.Īlexander Rosa Freites, a Venezuelan asylum-seeker, stands for a portrait near the Atlantic Armory Shelter in Brooklyn earlier this month.Īlexander Rosa Freites, 40, says he worked as a massage therapist back home in Coro, Venezuela, about six hours from Caracas. Orlando, a scrawny 26-year-old, is one of hundreds of Venezuelan migrants – all men – staying at a shelter in an old armory building in Brooklyn. Devastating floods followed heavy rain there earlier this month.
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Orlando flashed his phone and on the cracked screen appeared a video of flooding and destruction in his hometown of Las Tejerías, Venezuela. "My family lost their home," says Enderson Orlando, "and I'm desperate to find work here, and I haven't found anything." And migrants say they can't afford to wait. Many of those migrants could qualify for work permits eventually – but only after they've officially applied for asylum. Since April, more than 20,000 migrants have sought shelter in New York alone, according to city officials. That means it won't help the more than 180,000 Venezuelans who've already been released into the U.S. But the only way to get in is to apply from abroad. Immigration authorities have just launched a new program that will allow up to 24,000 Venezuelan migrants to live and work in the U.S. Volunteers at the Church of the Holy Apostles in Manhattan earlier this month. So immigration authorities have been releasing tens of thousands of Venezuelans per month into the United States, where they can seek asylum.Įxperts say that the current wave of Venezuelan migrants, unlike migrants from Central America or Mexico, generally don't have social networks in the U.S., friends or family who can help them find their footing in the U.S. Until recently, migrants from Venezuela couldn't be expelled to Mexico under the pandemic border restrictions known as Title 42.
But I tell them, 'Listen, you got to be careful.' " You know, this is New York City, so we know there's kind of workarounds for that.
"Their first question is, 'Where can I get work?' " she says. Since August, volunteers and church staff have been serving hundreds of Venezuelan migrants a week with food and clothing.Īlfaro says they all want to know the same thing. The line outside the church is already long at 10 a.m. The church runs a soup kitchen a few blocks away from the Port Authority Bus Terminal in Manhattan.
Jay Alfaro (center) helps migrants at the Church of the Holy Apostles in Manhattan earlier this month.
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