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By Karen Zraick and Brittany Kriegstein
The wave of immigrants that began arriving in New York from the southern border last year was in many ways. Unlike most immigrants heading to the city, other people arrive en masse on buses, many with few local ties and little more than the clothes they wear. More than 36,000 have come to the city since the spring, Mayor Eric Adams said Friday, and about 24,000 have stayed.
As Biden’s administration looks for tactics to engage the southern border, those who arrived last year are beginning to build a new life for themselves. Some are struggling. Others are making progress.
New York was a first step for centuries of immigrants and the city provides exclusive protections. It is one of the few places that guarantees the right to housing for those in need, and has established strong legal and social protections for immigrants. Newcomers also benefited from assistance provided through a giant network of well-funded nonprofits.
There are still obstacles, however. The bus began in part as a political ploy by the Republican governors of Texas and Arizona to draw attention to the border crisis, in contrast to the same old immigration patterns in which other people bond with a circle of family or friends. Many recent immigrants have been in a large part dependent on formal aid and nonprofits, volunteer teams and the city say they have been defeated by the surge. While most immigrants hope to register asylum claims, the immigration court backlog means the procedure can take years.
Much of the border debate in recent weeks has revolved around the use of Title 42, a public fitness provision that has been used during the coronavirus pandemic to deny others from certain countries the right to seek asylum at the border. Just after Christmas, the Supreme Court left the provision in place, for now.
President Biden said Thursday that Cubans, Nicaraguans and Haitians will now also be marginalized through Title 42, a policy that was extended to Venezuelans this fall. He still needed a lot more help to cover the charge of caring about asylum seekers.
Meanwhile, migrants who are not subject to Title 42, or those who arrived before its expansion, continue to make their way to New York. Adams said this month that Colorado’s governor would send migrants to the city. A local volunteer said 3 state buses passed by last week.
Finding paintings so they can be independent is key for those new New Yorkers: In interviews, dozens said their most sensible priority was themselves and sending cash home. such as construction, catering and the service sector.
About 8 years after leaving his local Venezuela and moving to Colombia and then Mexico, Ismael Guevara, 48, nevertheless feels that he is where he is going to stay. And he’s only been in town for just over two months.
“I’ve gotten used to New York,” he said in outdoor Spanish at a café in Jackson Heights, Queens, his lunch break in the next room where he worked at the time. “I don’t get lost anymore,” I’m fine, I’m getting where I want to go.
“Every day, more and more, I feel like I am passing to stay here to live in New York,” Mr. Guevara said. “I feel calm, I don’t want to go through another country. “
He left Caracas, the Venezuelan capital, due to instability and threats to his security. When he nevertheless arrived in New York, he was sent to the Randalls Island winter shelter that the city built in October.
After that closure, after only a few weeks of operation, it moved into a midtown Manhattan hotel, which temporarily closed to tourists and instead functions as an urban haven for single men.
Just over a month ago, Mr. Guevara got a job at a hair salon. He had already been an award-winning stylist in high-end salons and was eager to resume his passion.
Every day he would leave early to go paint and head to Columbus Circle, take exercise number 1 to Times Square and then move to 7 to Queens. He painted seven days a week and had a full list of clients. A few hundred dollars a day. From time to time, he would attend a Manhattan bar with live music for a Corona after the paintings, or jump into a fast-food place to eat fried chicken.
Last week, Ismael quit his job at the salon to start his own business. She has a hard time learning English and hopes to rent her own apartment soon.
“The step is to open my own salon in the future,” he said. “My living room, in my name. When I have my documents, and my papers, and everything.
Things didn’t go so well for Akon Patrick Dieudonné, 41, a Haitian who had lived in Brazil for a decade. He said he is a filmmaker and activist who fights for the rights of black and indigenous people.
He left Haiti because of threats against an uncle who was a politician and pastor in Gonaives, his hometown, he said. He moved again, he said, because of threats from supporters of President Jair Bolsonaro in Brazil.
Like thousands of others, he crossed the Darien Gap, a strip of harmful, untapped land connecting Colombia and Panama that has become the main migration route. Along the way, he met a Salvadoran woman. The two continued together, entered the United States in San Diego, and then flew to New York with a group. She is now pregnant with her baby. He lives with her and their 13-year-old daughter at Row NYC, a Midtown hotel.
Dieudonné was one of several newcomers who last month reported to a Washington Heights church what they called abuse at the city’s shelters. He said the food, adding moldy bread, had caused many other people to have health problems and go hungry. Her friend is anemic and worries about her health.
A spokeswoman for the city corridor said in a statement that officials had no evidence of rotting food at the shelters and were providing new food throughout the day. Breakfast and lunch are ready overnight and delivered each morning, and dinner is ready during the day, with snacks to grab anytime, he said.
When Mr. Dieudonné arrived in town in October, he thought he would get a task temporarily. He was hoping to find a task in film or television production and hopes to one day have his own business. strange tasks and walks to Brooklyn’s Flatbush neighborhood, where there is a thriving Haitian community. He rarely sees Haitian friends or an American friend he met in Brazil. Try to stay positive.
“I see there’s a long way to go outside,” he said. But it’s very difficult, some days we don’t eat anything. “
Loiseth Colmenares, 31, a migrant from San Francisco de Tiznados, Venezuela, arrived in New York 4 months ago with her husband and two children. The circle of relatives spent 3 of the months living in a SpringHill Suites in Queens that was converted to a shelter last year to space out newly arrived families.
At first, Ms. Colmenares’ two sons, Omar, 10, and Sebastian, 2, didn’t eat enough because the packaged and reheated food served at the hotel was very different from what they were used to at home. People who didn’t speak Spanish, so the family circle struggled to find resources. They were concerned about Ms. Colmenares’ mother, sister and nephew, who arrived at the border but were turned away after Title 42 was extended to Venezuelan migrants in October.
Now things are improving.
“We are stable,” Colmenares said.
The food is “the same, but we adapt,” he explained. Life at the hotel has improved: A new manager has implemented many changes, Colmenares said.
“Every family circle has a social worker. They made a playroom for the kids. They made a computer room,” he said. Donations from volunteers and nonprofits also helped them settle in. “There are so many organizations. They gave us clothes, Christmas presents,” he said. “They gave my husband tools. “
They even gave a scooter to his son Omar, who proudly rides on the sidewalk despite the winter cold.
Ms. Colmenares’ husband, Jose Romero, 36, also discovered paintings at a structure site in Jamaica, Queens, where he paints five days a week and earns $20 an hour. Most of the money goes to relatives abroad, but when Omar turned 10 in early December, Ms. Colmenares and her husband bought their favorite treat: a chocolate cake.
Ms. Colmenares still hoped that some of the members of that circle of family members would be able to register in New York. Her mother, who has a disability, stayed in Mexico with Ms. Colmenares’ sister and nephew. An organization connected to a church added their names to a list to speed up their access to the United States, Colmenares said.
“I’ve talked to the doctors, to the pastor who is in charge of the organization, and they will do everything they can to make sure they get out as soon as possible,” he said. “Because there is no blood and my mother has chest pain. “. “
When they arrive, Ms. Colmenares hopes that they can be accommodated in a room in the hotel hostel, if there is space.
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