The three kids had not bathed in 4 days.
They’d been sleeping in a makeshift tent on a grimy avenue outdoors a bus terminal in Mexico Metropolis, and Hayli, solely 6, was growing a rash between her legs. However the dad and mom couldn’t spare the 20 pesos, or roughly $1, for a bucket bathe.
After a 55-day trek by way of Latin America, the 5 members of the Aguilar Ortega household have been stranded greater than 3,000 miles from their Venezuelan homeland, and nearly as many miles from their meant vacation spot: New York Metropolis.
It had been per week since they’d arrived in Mexico Metropolis, and so they had no cash to proceed north. The youngsters — Hayli, Samuel, 10, and Josué, 11 — have been in good spirits, imagining aloud what it will be prefer to dwell in New York. However for the dad and mom, Henry Aguilar, 34, and his companion, Leivy Ortega, 29, the lull demanded a reassessment of what nonetheless lay forward.
Whereas Mayor Eric Adams of New York spoke at a close-by convention in Mexico Metropolis, the Aguilar Ortega household slept in tents.
Hundreds of thousands of Venezuelans just like the Aguilar Ortega household have fled financial distress and political repression of their homeland because it descended into turmoil. The exodus has led to a pointy enhance in crossings on the U.S. border, reigniting immigration as one of the polarizing points forward of the presidential election.
Certainly, the Biden administration lately took govt motion to restrict the variety of migrants crossing the southern border. The choice angered critics who contend that it contradicts America’s picture as a protected harbor for the weak. However others welcomed the transfer amid issues that migrants have been being let in with few checks.
Mr. Aguilar embodied that paradox. He set off for the USA with a turbulent previous as a soldier, police officer and bodyguard in Venezuela, and after a jail stint that might derail his probabilities of securing asylum.
However Mr. Aguilar hoped to start out anew.
Ms. Ortega dreamed of possibly someday opening a restaurant. Each have been chasing a obscure promise of a greater future in the USA whereas casting apart the actual chance that his legal historical past might render the household’s hardship for naught.
The New York Occasions documented the household’s one-year odyssey, first assembly them in Mexico Metropolis, after which rejoining them on the U.S.-Mexican border. The ordeal would check their psychological and bodily fortitude, pressure the dad and mom’ relationship, and problem their dedication and skill to construct a brand new life in the USA.
The household’s canine, Donna, was with the household each step of the journey.
The journey took them by way of a jungle of lifeless our bodies and was crammed with risks that terrified the dad and mom, together with an impediment course of soiled cops, smugglers and immigration checkpoints they traversed on foot and by bus. They needed to panhandle, promote lollipops and hustle up odd jobs alongside the best way.
However for the youngsters, the journey was framed as a daring household expertise. They took footage and recorded video that they shared with The Occasions. They even introduced their coffee-colored Labrador combine, Donna. Of their eyes, it was all a part of an enormous journey that will finish in a spot they’d seen solely in motion pictures.
“The children need to go to New York,” Mr. Aguilar mentioned in Spanish as he stood by his tent in Mexico Metropolis. “They need to see Occasions Sq..”
However his American dream was even less complicated: “All I need is to take my youngsters to play ball in a park,” he mentioned.
MAY – AUGUST 2023 COLOMBIA
Samuel, Hayli and Josué pose for a photograph in Colombia, the place alongside the best way they slept in a city plaza for 2 weeks.
The Determination to Go to New York
Mr. Aguilar left Venezuela about six years in the past, a part of a flight of greater than seven million individuals who’ve escaped a once-wealthy nation the place the economic system collapsed and crime skyrocketed underneath President Nicolás Maduro.
Three years later, Mr. Aguilar discovered himself in Chile, the place he sparked a romance with Ms. Ortega, who can also be Venezuelan, and so they blended their households. Ms. Ortega left behind a 13-year-old daughter in Ecuador as a result of she was too sick to journey.
Apart from Ecuador, the household additionally frolicked in Peru earlier than setting their sights on the USA on the kids’s prodding. So that they headed to Colombia however with no cash, no plan and no place to sleep — a frequent plight throughout their voyage.
They slept in a city plaza there for 2 weeks earlier than Mr. Aguilar and Ms. Ortega gathered sufficient cash to lease a house. Colombia, Mr. Aguilar thought, was the place he would put together the youngsters for the menacing rainforest between Colombia and Panama referred to as the Darién Hole.
“It’s going to be a grand journey,” Mr. Aguilar recalled telling them. “However with real-life obstacles.”
So Mr. Aguilar put them by way of an at-home boot camp with a summer time camp really feel, letting them journey bicycles to spice up their stamina.
He woke them up earlier than 7 a.m., however their breakfast parts have been small to brace for the approaching starvation.
Crossing the Darién Hole
At first, the journey into “la selva,” or the jungle, had the trimmings of an organized tour.
The household was given pink wristbands after paying $300 to the armed males who management entry to the Darién Hole. And surrounded by lots of of Venezuelans, they even had a way of anticipation as they smiled for selfies, their garments nonetheless clear.
That pleasure would fade as they waded into the jungle’s depths.
Their ft have been rubbed uncooked as they trudged by way of mud. Hayli misplaced two toenails and cried as dust seeped into the uncovered pores and skin. Torrents of rain made rivers roar, forcing Mr. Aguilar to ferry every member of the family throughout, one after the other — with Donna the Labrador’s stubbornness almost drowning him.
“Muerto! Muerto!” these towards the entrance would name again as they handed the our bodies of migrants. “Lifeless! Lifeless!”
Ms. Ortega generously, however maybe naïvely, shared the household’s meals with different migrants, leaving the household to subsist on nothing however river water on the final two days of the six-day hike by way of the jungle.
It was laborious to cover the brutality of the journey from the youngsters.
“No puedo,” Ms. Ortega would say. “I can’t.”
AUGUST – OCTOBER PANAMA TO MEXICO CITY
The dad and mom offered the journey as a grand journey to the youngsters.
The household used foreign money to maintain monitor of locations they went by way of in Guatemala and Mexico.
Attending to Mexico Metropolis
As soon as out of the jungle, the youngsters have been dedicated to the journey as they crisscrossed dust roads and slipped from one nation into the subsequent.
Josué, ever talkative, informed anybody inside earshot that they have been headed to New York to see Occasions Sq., or las pantallas: the screens.
Samuel, essentially the most reserved of the three, assumed the position of navigator. He quietly tracked their trek on a wrinkled map of Central America as Donna meandered with no leash.
Hayli was at all times the primary to smile for footage, flashing her tooth hole. Her small legs carried her for hours, because the household circumvented border checkpoints in Panama, Costa Rica, Nicaragua, Honduras and Guatemala.
However for the dad and mom, the burden of not having cash was inescapable.
There was transportation to rearrange and immigration officers to grease. Bus corporations would cost them double or refuse to promote them tickets as a result of they have been migrants, a style of the unfairness that awaited them additional north.
They usually slept in tents on the road, and going to sleep with out consuming grew to become regular.
In Guatemala, cops patted down migrants to steal their cash. They groped Ms. Ortega’s breast, leaving her feeling violated, she mentioned. Mr. Aguilar created hiding locations for his or her money, utilizing toenail clippers to chop small openings into Hayli’s jacket and Josué’s pants. The ruse labored.
They largely got here to depend on the charity of strangers and sporadic cash transfers from buddies and relations: greater than $8,000 in complete, the dad and mom acknowledged with a hint of disgrace.
OCTOBER – NOVEMBER MEXICO CITY TO CIUDAD JUÁREZ, Mexico
Hopping Freight Trains
The household rode a succession of freight trains to the U.S. border.
The look forward to a practice might final for hours, particularly at nighttime. When one stopped, they’d all emerge from hiding close to the tracks and clamber onto a automobile’s steel roof.
They mounted themselves as finest they may, wrapped loosely in rope and blankets, the wind blowing towards their faces as they left behind Mexico Metropolis.
They have been using “la bestia,” or the beast, the scary nickname for the cargo trains that many migrants hop illegally, hoping to evade checkpoints and cartels. Numerous individuals have died or misplaced limbs using the trains.
Ms. Ortega wrapped her legs round Hayli and prayed that the boys wouldn’t fall off. Bundled in quilts, the boys squinted their eyes towards the chilly breeze, taking within the arid shrub land.
The nights have been the toughest. They battled falling asleep, fearful with every jerk of the practice that they’d fall off.
NOV. 9-10 CIUDAD JUÁREZ, MEXICO
A household selfie alongside the border in Ciudad Juárez, Mexico, earlier than they crossed into Texas.
Ms. Ortega seems at a household ring, the one heirloom she introduced from Venezuela.
On their final evening in Juárez, the household left for the border patrol checkpoint at 3 a.m.
Approaching the Border
The Occasions reconnected with the household in Ciudad Juárez, a Mexican border metropolis the place migrants are repeatedly smuggled and kidnapped for ransom, and generally murdered. The Aguilar Ortegas have been visibly matted, rising from the final practice with little however the garments on their again, nearer than ever to the USA.
“Time goes by slowly now,” Mr. Aguilar mentioned after taking the youngsters to look on the Rio Grande. Texas was only a few yards away, behind a towering fence.
Utilizing a cellular app that the Biden administration has relied on to curb unlawful crossings, the household had secured a coveted appointment to enter the USA legally the subsequent day — step one for a lot of migrants searching for asylum.
However with no cash left for meals that evening, they determined to pawn Ms. Ortega’s white gold ring, her final household heirloom.
A pawnshop supplied her 400 pesos, or $23 — a lowball worth, she thought, maybe as a result of she was Venezuelan. She discovered a Mexican man to promote the ring for her.
The store supplied him greater than double, about $70. She took the cash, feeling unhappy however intelligent, and barely empowered.
Coming into the USA
As daybreak crept throughout the Rio Grande, migrants from Cuba, Haiti and Venezuela with immigration appointments braced the frigid desert air on a bridge connecting Ciudad Juárez to El Paso, Texas.
After coming into so many international locations illegally, the household’s last border crossing was to be solely lawful. However that did little to ease their nerves as federal officers started to verify their passports, take fingerprints and pictures, and swab their cheeks for DNA.
It’s not clear what immigration officers knew of Mr. Aguilar.
He had a tumultuous upbringing in Venezuela: He mentioned he was kicked out of the home as a young person, and was in a bike accident that resulted in everlasting reminiscence loss that blurs his childhood.
Nonetheless, he recalled dreaming of changing into a detective, and after a cease within the navy, he joined Venezuela’s largest nationwide police company, which is closely politicized and has a historical past of corruption.
Mr. Aguilar was a part of a SWAT-like unit that specialised in taking down organized crime when, as a 21-year-old police officer, he was arrested and charged in 2010 with abusing his authority.
Venezuelan prosecutors accused him of collaborating in an armed shakedown of somebody who owed his buddy cash. The buddy and Mr. Aguilar, mentioned to be carrying one other officer’s gun, have been accused of holding a number of individuals at gunpoint and stealing cash and bottles of whiskey. Mr. Aguilar was charged with aggravated theft, extortion and embezzlement, based on the few courtroom paperwork out there on-line.
Mr. Aguilar says Venezuelan prosecutors distorted the costs and that he and his buddy weren’t violent. In courtroom paperwork, he portrayed himself as accompanying his buddy for backup. He ultimately served two years in jail, he mentioned.
On the U.S. border, background checks didn’t seem to show up Mr. Aguilar’s legal previous. The household was launched on parole — a standing that enables migrants with out visas to dwell and work within the nation as their asylum instances wind by way of the courts.
Mr. Aguilar’s first courtroom look earlier than an immigration choose is scheduled for April 2025. He doesn’t understand how he intends to take care of his previous: The federal government can bar asylum for individuals convicted of significant crimes, and Mr. Aguilar must disclose his file on his asylum utility.
None of that was entrance of thoughts because the household walked into downtown El Paso, ushered in by an archway with a well-recognized greeting: Bienvenidos.
NOV. 10-24 EL PASO, TEXAS
The household shared tight quarters in a shelter with different migrants arriving each day to El Paso.
Mr. Aguilar slept outdoors the shelter in El Paso with Donna, as a result of canine weren’t allowed.
Tumult in Texas
By Day 3 in El Paso, the household was already in turmoil. Ms. Ortega had gotten in a battle at a shelter with three Venezuelan girls after tempers flared within the dinner line. The household was pressured to go to a different shelter.
Ms. Ortega sat down on a stoop, her face scratched, and started to cry.
They have been informed they didn’t qualify without cost migrant buses out of Texas. And whereas they’d collected $120 — largely due to Donna, who attracted beneficiant passers-by — business bus transport to New York was as much as $450 per particular person. They’d survived a treacherous monthslong journey, solely to be stranded once more.
Ms. Ortega considered the upcoming birthday of her daughter in Ecuador, and puzzled if she would have cash for a present. She spoke wistfully a few buddy who had made it to New York and already had an residence and sufficient cash to assist his household in Venezuela.
“It’s not envy, however I need to be over there already,” she mentioned by way of tears. “I really feel caught right here. It hasn’t even been 72 hours and I’ve already been hit.”
Mr. Aguilar consoled her. “It’s at all times been like this,” he mentioned. “However we at all times determine it out.”
The journey had taken its toll on the youngsters. When Josué and Samuel performed with toy vehicles on the sidewalk, they re-enacted scenes from their younger lives: immigration cops chasing migrants.
And tensions between the dad and mom started to simmer as they deciphered what to do subsequent. Was New York even the appropriate place to go?
“Issues are powerful in New York with the 100,000 migrants who’ve arrived there,” Father Rafael García warned them gently at their first shelter, which is run by the Roman Catholic Church.
Taped to the shelter wall, a flier in Spanish paid for by New York Metropolis supplied a extra dire evaluation: “It’s finest when you go to a extra reasonably priced metropolis.”
The flight the household took to New York was the primary time Ms. Ortega had been on a airplane.
After arriving, the household headed for a well-recognized migrant place to begin, the Roosevelt Resort.
Fasten Your Seatbelts
Hayli cried when her ears popped for the primary time because the airplane gained altitude, however as soon as it glided into La Guardia Airport, her sense of marvel took over.
“Papi, the toilet was magical!” she exclaimed, recounting how the hand dryers and bogs sprung to life through sensors.
Only a few weeks earlier, New York had appeared out of attain. However in El Paso, the household met a bunch of Christian missionaries from Michigan who, shocked by their story, raised almost $2,000 for Delta flights.
And so it was that the household landed in New York the day after Thanksgiving with 20 cents, their few belongings stuffed inside a donated suitcase and a pink sleeping bag that Mr. Aguilar hauled like Santa Claus.
The household had heard that in the event that they went to a spot known as Manhattan, they may get free shelter on the Roosevelt Resort, the welcoming heart for the 200,000 migrants who’ve lately come to the town.
At a Queens subway station, they persuaded a Spanish-speaking police officer to allow them to in with out paying the fare. They climbed a maze of stairs and nearly boarded the fallacious practice till a passer-by supplied them steerage.
The youngsters stared out the 7 practice in awe as the town skyline materialized towards an orange sundown.
“Higher than using the highest of a practice,” Mr. Aguilar mentioned.
NOV. 25 – DEC. 9 MANHATTAN AND BROOKLYN
For the youngsters, Occasions Sq. was the aim. They stared in awe on the lit-up screens and the costumed superheroes.
The household celebrated Ms. Ortega’s twenty ninth birthday on the Floyd Bennett Subject shelter in Brooklyn.
Making an attempt to Make It in New York
The youngsters held arms in Occasions Sq.. They strolled round Central Park, posing for an image by the statue of Simón Bolivar, the revered Venezuelan who fought Spain.
However the attract of sightseeing shortly gave method to challenges: discovering jobs, everlasting housing, a way of stability.
They’d been assigned to a far-flung Brooklyn shelter at Floyd Bennett Subject, an outdated airfield on Jamaica Bay the place the town is housing lots of of households in a large tent dormitory.
Upset by the tent surroundings and its distance from Manhattan, Mr. Aguilar, inclined to creating rash choices, initially rejected the shelter’s free room and board earlier than acknowledging it was the household’s solely possibility.
“I used to be being rebellious,” Mr. Aguilar mentioned. “I’ve been fallacious so many instances earlier than. I’m not excellent.”
However the dad and mom started getting antsy. The shelter was getting crowded. They didn’t communicate English or know how one can apply for a authorized work allow.
So after simply three weeks, Mr. Aguilar uprooted his household once more.
DECEMBER – MARCH MIDDLETOWN, CONN.
The household was positioned right into a two-bedroom residence in Middletown, Conn., after leaving the shelter system in New York.
Hayli and the boys have been enrolled in faculties, the place they shortly picked up English.
A New House in Connecticut
Just a few days earlier than Christmas, the household was sleeping in a automobile outdoors a gasoline station in Brooklyn.
The youngsters snuggled tightly within the again seat, braving the chilly in a beat-up Honda sedan Mr. Aguilar had discovered on Fb for $800. Then luck intervened.
Throughout a short keep in Connecticut a couple of weeks earlier, the household had met Maria Cardona, who works at a social companies supplier there. She known as Ms. Ortega to verify in, and discovered of the household’s setup. She instantly made some calls.
“Their scenario impacted me deeply,” Ms. Cardona mentioned.
She helped them transfer right into a two-bedroom home on a leafy avenue in Middletown, Conn., operated by an area nonprofit that gives free emergency housing for homeless households. The household was allowed to remain on a month-by-month foundation in the event that they confirmed a case supervisor they have been actively in search of employment and a everlasting residence.
Extra assist arrived.
Amy Swan, the psychologist on the kids’s elementary faculty, gathered donations of meals and garments, in addition to cash to pay the $410 payment for Mr. Aguilar to use for a allow to work legally.
Her husband, Ray Swan, owns a wooden workshop and was in search of a employee. So he employed Mr. Aguilar, who labored in carpentry after leaving Venezuela, and started paying him $20 an hour to construct furnishings and kitchen cupboards.
“He works laborious and doesn’t complain,” Mr. Swan mentioned at his workshop in March. “I can’t cease singing his praises.”
MARCH – JULY MIDDLETOWN, CONN. TO HOUSTON
After abruptly leaving Connecticut for Houston, the household confronted new challenges.
The dad and mom share information of her being pregnant with their three kids.
Extra Turmoil and an Unsure Future
In early March, the household obtained extra welcome information: Ms. Ortega was pregnant.
She’s anticipated to offer start later this yr. Having a baby who’s a U.S. citizen wouldn’t give the dad and mom any particular protections towards deportation, leaving the household’s immigration standing in flux.
Immigration attorneys mentioned that Mr. Aguilar’s previous will critically complicate his bid for asylum, an uphill course of that normally ends with judges saying no.
“If it’s God’s will that I’m not right here in two years, then so be it,” Mr. Aguilar mentioned in Connecticut in March. “I’m completely happy being with my household and making them completely happy.”
However the dad and mom have been nonetheless stressing about their future, and their relationship continued to fray. One evening in mid-April, Ms. Ortega grabbed a baseball bat and swung at Mr. Aguilar, hitting his arms. She mentioned it occurred within the warmth of the second. Mr. Aguilar was not injured and didn’t hit again.
She was arrested on a misdemeanor cost of disorderly conduct, and a protecting order was issued to maintain Ms. Ortega away from Mr. Aguilar. He misplaced his carpentry job, and the household was pressured from the home. Mr. Aguilar was positioned in a shelter for home violence victims together with his kids, Samuel and Hayli; Ms. Ortega was arrange elsewhere with Josué, her son.
The household was languishing once more — aside, with a child on the best way and their immigration standing nonetheless in query.
Determined, they fell again on the identical spur-of-the-moment method that guided their travels. Ignoring the protecting order and strapped for cash, the dad and mom reconciled and deserted Connecticut, leaving Ms. Ortega’s courtroom case unresolved. They hauled the youngsters and Donna south within the outdated Honda, hoping it wouldn’t break down.
About 1,700 miles and 5 days later, they arrived in Houston, the place the mom of Mr. Aguilar’s two kids took the household in, cramming right into a small residence with mattresses on the ground.
Mr. Aguilar is making use of for landscaping jobs whereas doing supply gigs. Ms. Ortega has been satisfying her being pregnant cravings with mangos.
However, ever stressed, the dad and mom have been already hatching subsequent strikes.
Denver appeared promising. Salt Lake Metropolis, maybe.
In Houston, no less than, Mr. Aguilar had fulfilled his want: He discovered a park to play catch with the youngsters.
