An immigrant’s life: City of opportunity brings struggle for stability

In the two months since his arrival in the United States, an immigrant from Venezuela has been bounced from Texas to Arizona to Florida to shelters in the Chicago area.

This summer, he left his four children with relatives, and he and his wife departed their native Venezuela in search of better jobs and medical care for her. Since then, the man — who asked not to be identified — has spent days walking the streets of Miami and later Chicago to try and find work to stabilize his family’s finances.

He’s spotted hiring signs and filled out applications, but his search often hits a wall because, as he tries to seek asylum, he doesn’t yet have a permit to work.

He recently started training at a car wash where he hopes to gain employment.

“We don’t want to turn into a public charge for the state,” he said in Spanish during a recent interview just outside Chicago. “We want to work.”

The man and his wife are among more than 3,500 immigrants who have arrived since late August in Chicago from the southern U.S. border. His struggles to find stable employment and navigate the immigration system highlight some challenges immigrants could face as they settle into their lives in the Chicago area.

First, Texas; then, Arizona, Florida and Illinois

The man and his wife arrived in Chicago in early September after an organization in Florida paid for their bus tickets, telling them there could be more opportunities in Chicago because it’s a sanctuary city, he said.

Other immigrants arriving in Chicago are coming on buses chartered by officials in Texas. Many of them have been from Venezuela, but that will likely soon change.

Venezuelans who try to enter the U.S. as of Oct. 12 without authorization will be sent to Mexico, according to a news release from the U.S. Department of Homeland Security. As part of the new enforcement, the U.S. will soon create a new program to allow an additional 24,000 Venezuelans into the U.S. if they have a sponsor and arrive by air, according to the federal agency. It’s unclear what this will mean for those who had already made their way to Chicago.

Katarina Ramos, a managing attorney with the National Immigrant Justice Center, said attorneys helping Venezuelans who started arriving in late August in Chicago say the sponsorship requirement could be difficult for families, she said.

“I’ve been meeting with a lot of the new arrivals who have been coming on the buses from Texas, and very few of them have somebody who was able to sponsor them here in the United States.”

That was the case for the man and his wife. They are the first in their families to emigrate to the United States. He left his government job in Venezuela, and the family sold their home and car to make the trek to the U.S. He wanted his wife to get better medical care, and he heard there were plenty of available jobs in America.

“You come with an idea that you will work as soon as you arrive,” he said. “But it’s not like that. You find a situation where people need people, but they are scared to hire undocumented people.”

After being released from immigration detention in Texas, the couple was separated until they were able to reunite in Arizona, he said. They asked to be sent to Miami, figuring it would be easier to navigate because of the existing Latin American community there, he said.

But they spent about a week walking around Miami unable to find jobs or an affordable place to rent, he said. That’s when a social worker at a shelter where they were suggested relocating to Chicago.

They arrived in Chicago during the Labor Day weekend, when many offices were closed. They slept on the streets near Lake Michigan for two nights before they were referred to a shelter where other immigrants are staying, he said. They were moved to another shelter and later to a Chicago-area hotel, where they have stayed for the past three weeks.

Anthony Vazquez/Sun-Times file photo

‘They’re very driven to gain employment’

He said they receive three meals a day, and the hotel staff has been kind. But without steady jobs, he worries about money.

“It’s an emotional burden when your children call ...” he said. “You don’t have money, you aren’t making any to send. It creates an emotional burden. I can’t sleep.”

Eddy Borrayo, the president and CEO of Rincon Family Services, said men at a shelter his group’s work with have been able to get part-time work.

“It is case by case, but for the most part they’re very driven to gain employment, obtain a household as well as putting their children into schooling,” Borrayo said.

Many arriving on buses from Texas are coming with temporary legal permission to enter the U.S. and will have to speak with an attorney to find out how to obtain a work permit, said Alejandra Palacios, staff attorney at the International Human Rights Clinic at the University of Illinois-Chicago Law School.

Applying for a work permit can be costly, Palacios said.

The fee to apply for a work permit with a pending asylum case is $410, and it could take 12 to 13 months for it to be processed, according to U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services. An asylum case in immigration court could take years to resolve. It can take more than three years for an initial hearing, according to a data analysis from Syracuse University.

Those seeking asylum may have to wait until they file for it to apply for a work permit, Ramos said. Some have been allowed into the country under temporary parole for about 60 days, which would likely expire before a work permit application was even processed, she said.

“The over 2,000 people that we’ve seen, almost every single one of them has asked me how they can work,” Ramos said. “That’s their first question.”

Some immigration papers list wrong cities

Some of the individuals who recently arrived are also feeling stressed because they have documents indicating they need to check in with federal immigration officials in another city, said Elizabeth Rompf Bruen, the chapter chair for the American Immigration Lawyers Association in Chicago.

“They want to comply with what’s being asked of them,” Rompf Bruen said, adding that the group has been talking to immigration officials to see if there’s a way individuals can check in remotely.

Those arriving from Texas can check in at U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement’s Chicago office even if the paperwork lists a different city, according to the federal agency.

The man and his wife missed their hearing that had been scheduled in September in Miami. But for now, their biggest worry is getting jobs to start saving money.

“A lawyer costs a lot so I know I have a year from entering the country to petition for asylum,” he said. “I need a lawyer.”

Elvia Malagón’s reporting on social justice and income inequality is made possible by a grant from The Chicago Community Trust.