“We were on our way and we thought, ‘Let’s calm down, this probably won’t last long and we will probably be able to return in two weeks.’ That was our hope, but we’ve been here almost three months without being able to return to Venezuela,” she said. 

Asuaje and her family are part of approximately 1,000 Venezuelans in the U.S. waiting for a charter or humanitarian flight to return them home. Most left behind family, businesses and jobs thinking they would only be gone for a couple of weeks. None of them expected that their trip would not have a return date. On March 17, the National Institute of Civil Aeronautics announced on its website and on social media that Venezuela’s airspace will be closed to foreign and domestic flights, following direct orders from Maduro’s administration. Since then, they have sent monthly announcements extending the restriction. 

Screenshot of the email many have received from the Embassy of Venezuela to the U.S. “We remind you that currently, Maduro’s dictatorship is the only impediment to your return…if there is any update or solution, we will communicate with you promptly.”

In some cases, their tourist visas will expire soon and they cannot cover the cost of renewal, which would leave them in an illegal status. Others can no longer afford lodging, food or medical expenses, forcing them to seek help from churches for shelter and humanitarian aid.

“We need to work immediately. We need an income because we no longer have money,” said Azuaje, who has two children, ages three and four. 

They hoped to get a job through friends in Massachusetts, but they contracted the virus and were unable to offer them help. A Methodist church in Georgia has been covering some lodging costs and helping them find solutions while they wait for a return date.

Desperate, this group of Venezuelans has contacted ambassadors and diplomats of both Maduro’s administration and Guaidó’s interim administration. Since Guaidó, the former leader of the National Assembly, claimed the presidency in January of last year Venezuela has had two presidents, complicating the already trembling relations with the U.S. Although the U.S. backed his claim to the presidency, the embassy of the Guaidó administration cannot perform many of the regular consular services due to the continuing power struggle with Maduro in Venezuela.  

Not receiving any responses from either has led them to create Instagram accounts such as @venezolanosvaradosenusa2020, where they have organized lists to register those who are waiting for a repatriation flight. The list was sent to the Venezuelan embassy in Mexico and the United States with passport data, but they have not offered any solutions to date. The organizers of the Instagram account also created WhatsApp groups to keep everyone updated and help each other. 

Venezuelansstrandedinusa2020 Instagram account, where they post updates and news about the airspace closure.

The lack of consular services, the breakdown of diplomatic relations between the two nations and the existence of two governments in the same country leave this group of Venezuelans totally helpless.

For Carlos Bouzada, it was frustrating to see how his friends from Peru and Colombia were able to return home on a humanitarian flight sent by their respective governments. Bouzada arrived in Tarrytown, New York, on January 6 to study English until March 14 at the EF institute. It was a trip to help him define his career and improve his language skills. However, it became the worst experience he has ever had.

He was on his way to the airport when he received an email from Avior airline notifying him that his flight was cancelled due to the virus. That same week, Bouzada was forced to lock himself in his dorm in EF since other students tested positive for COVID-19. 

“It is hypocritical that people are allowed to cross (Brazil and Colombia’s) borders by foot where it is more difficult to control people than at the airport,” he said. “We are all Venezuelans, we have the right to enter Venezuela. They cannot take away from us the right to enter, even if there is a virus. Obviously, the measures that have to be taken must be complied with, but they cannot prohibit people living in Venezuela from entering their country.” 

Despite the political polarization in the country, these Venezuelans do not care if it is Maduro or Guaidó’s government that returns them home.  

“Both Maduro and Guaidó are playing with us because they want to politicize our situation,” said  Nayroby D’ Onofrio, who had come to Florida for a short business trip and left an 8 -year-old son in Venezuela. “So we are left in the middle with our difficulties. No one is thinking of us, they’re only thinking of fulfilling their political agendas.” D’Onofrio has not seen her son since March.

“We are all willing to pay for our flight and quarantine in Venezuela, because all of us who are stranded have our return ticket, we are not immigrants,” she said.

For Luis Valles, who came to the U.S. to visit relatives in Miami and Baltimore, the most difficult thing is the uncertainty of not knowing when he will be able to return to meet his wife and son, who is just three months old. 

“We are compatriots, we are Venezuelans, we are kidnapped,” he said. “We are constrained without being able to do anything, without being able to return  home. Ninety percent of the people in this group are affected mostly by being far away from family.”

In addition to not knowing when they will go back home, they do not know what the quarantine conditions will be like when they arrive in Venezuela. 

“They put people who arrived from the Dominican Republic in abandoned houses and took away passports and telephones, but I am willing to take that risk as long as I can set foot on (Venezuelan) soil,” Valles said. 

The post Venezuelan government leaves residents stranded in U.S. during pandemic appeared first on Pavement Pieces.

While the SEBIN officers were waiting for the family to arrive, they ravaged their apartment in Caracas, going through all their belongings. After that call, the Sosa family had to leave everything behind and plan their escape. They were able to cross the border to Colombia by car, and from there they flew to Florida to apply for political asylum. After a series of odd jobs, Sosa finally found a job related to her engineering degree in New York. Her first day at the job was Monday, March 9. On Friday, March 13, the office closed and the city went on lockdown.  

“The first day in the job I cried because I couldn’t believe where I was,” Sosa said referring to the Major League Baseball office building at the Rockefeller center. “But I literally started on a Monday, and Friday of that same week the office closed because of the coronavirus. [In the office] it felt as if it had been 9/11, all the games were being cancelled, it was horrible.” 

 Venezuelans who have migrated to New York in the past two or three years have had to confront two crises in a short time frame. They left their country to flee rampant crime, hyperinflation, food scarcity, and social and political instability only to find the U.S. is plagued by its own set of issues, such as social inequality, racial disparity and police brutality, all of which are more evident in New York and the COVID-19 outbreak has exacerbated. 

Niurka Melendez, founder of Venezuelans and Immigrants Aid (VIA), a non-profit organization for Venezuelans in New York, did not receive the $1,200 stimulus check as a Venezuelan asylum seeker.

“Venezuelans are seeing themselves left without nothing again, and I say again because starting from ground zero is not something new for them,” Melendez said. “After achieving some degree of financial stability they are stripped from it once more.” 

Sosa and her family applied for political asylum because her mom was accused of participating in a drone attack against President Nicolas Maduro during a 2018 military ceremony in Caracas. Sosa said her mom had been helping student protesters who were struggling because of the country’s political turmoil. She collected food and clothing for them, and helped them find shelter. When the drone attack took place, Maduro’s government conducted arbitrary arrests, which included some of the students Sosa’s mother had been helping.

The SEBIN took their cellphones and saw WhatsApp messages from Sosa’s mother offering the students assistance. She was immediately implicated in the drone attacks, and currently there is an extradition request from Venezuela’s Supreme Court of Sosa’s mother. 

“The neighbor told us the SEBIN was at our apartment and there was no way we could go back,” Sosa said. “We never returned, all we know from our neighbor is that they waited for us for hours while drinking our whiskey, wine and all the food in our fridge. They stole our TVs, our clothing, jewelry, our legal documents and left the apartment completely empty.” 

 Despite direct prosecution of the Sosa family from the Maduro government, Sosa is currently waiting for her political asylum application to be approved by the U.S. Citizen and Immigration Services, (USCIS) a process that usually takes years and could be further delayed due to COVID-19. According to the USCIS website, the New York asylum office will be closed indefinitely.

 The broken diplomatic ties between the U.S. and Venezuela have restricted Venezuelans’ access to consular services. Also, many of the Venezuelans who have recently migrated find themselves in a legal limbo when arriving in the U.S. Hence, they do not have support from the country they left behind and they do not have support from the country they migrated to. This issue has become more evident during the pandemic. 

Ana Garcia, 19, arrived in New York in September of last year because she was awarded a scholarship to study performing arts in the New York Film Academy. Typically, international students arrive in the U.S. with a student visa already approved in their home countries. But since the U.S. embassy in Caracas is closed, Garcia had to enter the U.S. with a tourist visa and had to apply for a student visa once she was in New York. 

While she awaited a response from USCIS, she did a Google search for “Venezuelan restaurants near me,” and walked into several of them to ask if they were hiring. One of them was, and she worked as a server there until the restaurant closed due to the city-wide lockdown. After the outbreak started, USCIS canceled the interview they had scheduled with her to approve her student visa without a new date. She requested her name to be changed as she fears this information could affect her student visa approval.

 Garcia had to move out of New York to stay with a friend in North Carolina to cut costs. Without a job and without being eligible for economic assistance from the U.S. government, a New York rent was impossible to pay. 

“It’s like going from one hell to another,” she said. “Just when I feel like I have achieved a better life, the [pandemic] happens. It hit New York so hard and it was really difficult for me, especially as an immigrant. I don’t have the same rights an American has. I’ve had to figure out everything on my own. I’m only 19, I’m not a grown woman with her life figured out, so it’s really hard.”  

Melendez said there are still many paradigms with the Venezuelan migration.

“Countries still haven’t recognized Venezuelans as refugees. When Cubans arrive in Miami they obtain legal status, but not Venezuelans,” she said.  “Even though it is a forced migration due to the humanitarian crisis, the U.S. doesn’t recognize it as such. What [VIA] has seen during these 12 weeks of quarantine in New York is that, due to their irregular legal status, Venezuelans can only count on the support from churches, or an organization like [ours], or the International Rescue Committee.”

She added that she does not expect any support from the Venezuelan government for COVID-19 because of the longstanding lack of consular services. 

 Garcia has to return to New York eventually because she started all her migration paperwork in the USCIS office there. She is deciding whether to delay her start at the New York Film Academy a year, or until she knows for certain she will be able to attend classes in person. She cannot return to her home in Caracas because of her pending visa appointment. Garcia is counting only on the support of Venezuelan friends she has made since her arrival in the city. One of the most difficult things for her is not being able to be with her family. 

“In Venezuela you have your home, you have your family.  Even though it is horrible there, you have your own roof,” she said.

Since Sosa’s arrival in the U.S., all the jobs she has landed have been through her own search or through word of mouth, and she does not know of any organizations that help Venezuelans integrate to their new communities. She was able to maintain her engineering position and is currently working remotely from New York, but her weekly hours were reduced. For her, the social and political unrest brought by COVID-19 and the police murder of George Floyd are reminiscent of the ongoing protests in Caracas demanding reform and justice from the government. She is used to the social and political unrest that has followed her all the way to the U.S., but she is not used to being far away from her family, who is currently in Miami.

“Even though sometimes we wouldn’t have electricity or running water, I had a stable life [in Caracas] so I feel like I’ve been ripped from my nucleus,” she said. “This pandemic is killing me because of the anxiety of being alone.” 

If Maduro were to rescind, the Sosa family would return to Venezuela in a heartbeat. But as long as his administration is in power, they do not have that option.

“We couldn’t even leave the country by plane,” Sosa said. “We are literally exiled, we can’t return to Venezuela. If that wasn’t the case, I would be there.”

The post Venezuelans leave behind a country in crisis only to encounter a new crisis in New York appeared first on Pavement Pieces.

“The current regime tries to politicize the virus to stay in power and form common enemies,” said a journalist based in Caracas  who did not want to be identified for safety reasons. “Moreover, this is the perfect excuse to mask the gasoline shortage. If we are under quarantine, people don’t really use cars that often.” 

Venezuela’s government, historically responsible for jailing journalists, concentrating power, rejecting human rights scrutiny, was already struggling economically even before President Nicolas Maduro took power. Basic needs, like access to food and health resources became scarce and led millions of Venezuelans to flee from their homes.

The president imposed a nationwide quarantine on March 17 after the first case of COVID-19 was confirmed in the country. But because of the extreme poverty, Venezuelans continue to leave their houses to search for food and water. 

According to the World Food Program, 9.3 million Venezuelans,  nearly a third of the country’s population, are considered food insecure and 1 in 3 are not getting enough to eat. The same study found that 74%of families have adopted coping strategies to deal with the lack of food, such as reducing quality and variety of what they eat. 

 Maduro recently declared that the mandatory use of masks and quarantine measures are working. On May 30 Venezuela had 1,370 confirmed cases with 14 deaths. But these numbers were called “absurd” by the Human Rights Watch and John Hopkins University.

Dr. Kathleen Page, an associate medicine professor at John Hopkins told France 24 that Venezuela is “a country where doctors don’t have water to even wash their hands” and end up using water coming from the air conditioner to do it, and where “the health system is totally collapsing.”

She believes the true number of COVID-19 deaths is closer to 30,000. 

The Caracas journalist said that Venezuela suffered from serious consequences of the precarious public health even before the arrival of the coronavirus. 

“It is certainly difficult to believe that the numbers are that good,” the journalist said. “There is no transparency on the numbers coming from the government. Hospitals had already collapsed before the pandemic started and this is a risk for hospital staff too.” 

The first COVID-19 case was registered on  March 14, according to ABC News. 

A report from the Associated Press showed that despite the coronavirus threats, Venezuela’s elite still partied in Los Roques, a Venezuelan archipelago. On March 20, Maduro said on state television that, “practically everyone at the party is testing positive.”

“The first cases are believed to be imported by Spanish prostitutes after a party in Los Roques,” the journalist said

As a result , Colombian president, Iván Duque, closed the country’s border with Venezuela to stop the spread in Colombia. But Colombians could still enter Venezuela.

Just like in China, where xenophobia is on the rise,  Maduro is also blaming refugees that are coming back from Colombia for bringing the virus into Venezuela because he knows that people who fled are not his supporters, the journalist said.

Federico Sor,   a historian of modern Latin America, said Venezuela and China are allies. 

“The difference is that China had the resources, it built hospitals and tested the people, Maduro, however does not have the resources to do the same,” Sor said. “In Venezuela, just like in China, people who were contesting the numbers or threatening to expose it were being arrested.” 

In China, Li Wenliang, a doctor who sent the message to fellow doctors in Wuhan about the spread of a new virus was silenced by the police and later on investigated. The same has happened to journalists and doctors in Venezuela who claimed that health facilities were not ready to receive patients with COVID-19. Melquiades Avila is one of them. Now in hiding, he was accused of being a “criminal” by Lizeta Hernandez, a member of the ruling Socialist party. 

The economic situation is specifically critical now that oil prices are collapsing. Sor said the crisis is so big that he believes that it precedes the sanctions imposed by countries, such as the US. 

“Any country that relies on imports particularly suffers more,” he said. “The oil prices are low and the economy is contracting almost by half. Therefore, the options to stay in the country are not the best offer for most of the people who have left.”

The post Venezuela has another obstacle: the pandemic appeared first on Pavement Pieces.