By Giovanna Dell'orto — The Associated Press
EL PASO, Texas (AP) — When Luis Lopez got lost last year in the Darien Gap with his wife, then seven months pregnant, and their two young children and her grandmother, he knelt in the mud to beg God not to abandon them.
"If I was bad, let me die here, but I arrive with my family," the 34-year-old Venezuelan asylum seeker recalled Friday of his prayers. Now in El Paso, the family has found shelter with the local Catholic diocese.
But "the jungle," as many migrants call that particularly dangerous leg of their journey from South America to the United States, struck them again two weeks ago. Lopez's sister called him through tears. She, too, had had to flee and was now trapped in the jungle with her 68-year-old mother, who had suffered serious injuries in a fall trying to flee from armed men.
The two women, rescued by Panamanian border police, are now on their way to Texas. They do not know how they will cross into the United States, since new restrictions to request asylum took effect last Thursday with the end of the immigration rule of the pandemic known as Title 42.
Although the Joe Biden administration has presented the new policy as a way to stabilize the border region and deter illegal immigration, thousands of people continue to migrate to flee poverty, violence and political persecution in their countries.
[Border Crossings Fall After End of Title 42: These Are the Dreams and Fears in a Migrant Shelter]
Venezuelan asylum seeker Oriana Marcano cries and thanks God for keeping her family safe during the passage of the Darien in Panama last year. Andres Leighton / AP
"The border and what happens at the border is not the cause of the problem associated with immigration, it's a symptom of a broken system in many ways," said El Paso Bishop Mark Seitz, who has helped the Lopez family since they arrived at the shelter on diocesan property last September.
Although they had only one last bag of oatmeal mixed with river water in the jungle, López knew they could not return to Venezuela, where he had received death threats after he stopped working for government officials.
"They called me 'death to traitors,'" he recalled of phone calls and visits from armed men that began last spring.
When the threats spread to his sister, ex-wife and two children, López sold his trucking company and left for Colombia and then Central America. A smuggler kept all their savings in exchange for taking them by boat to avoid the Darien Gap, but instead took them directly into the jungle.
There they found bodies and armed bandits, and tried to comfort four women they found crying near the road because they had just been raped, Lopez said.
At one point they got lost and received indications from other migrants who were hiding in the dense vegetation but responded to their cries for help.
[Honduras calls for "law enforcement" in death of migrant child in Florida]
Lopez then confronted the smuggler and went into shock, falling faint by a creek. His wife was there. "My kids were screaming, 'Mommy, our daddy!' My only solution was to kneel, 'Oh my God, don't take him,'" said Oriana Marcano, 29.
These migrants saw their dream of a better future cut short. And they were even separated from their families.
May 13, 202301:58
Once they managed to leave, they still faced the risk of robberies, extortion and being returned to their country when passing through Central America or Mexico. "Unfortunately, the jungle is not everything," Lopez said.
When they finally arrived, a group of Cubans helped them pass over the border barrier in Ciudad Juarez, on the other side of El Paso, lifting them upwards. They were detained, held for a couple of days and then released to the shelter.
Two hours later, Marcano's labor began and she was taken to the hospital. Lopez was left with no money and no certainty that the family could be in the shelter beyond that night. The man who had promised to sponsor them in the United States, a requirement of the new immigration rules, withdrew his offer and told Lopez he had moved to Canada.
"There I found a man dressed in black, white hair, he told me 'quiet, calm,' with his Spanish more or less," Lopez recalled of the pastor. Seitz decided to take them in until the family recovered.
"They didn't have sponsors, so we basically said, 'I guess it's our turn,'" said Seitz, who wears a badge with Pope Francis' image that reads "Defending migrants because the pope said so." "We will continue to try to be Christians," he added.
[These are the pathways to legally immigrate to the U.S.]
Five-year-old Stefano Lopez pushes his 5-month-old brother Adonai's car while his mother, Venezuelan asylum seeker Oriana Marcano, checks her cellphone. Andres Leighton / AP
As they wait for their summer court date to apply for asylum and a work permit, Lopez and his wife have wasted no time. He has revamped a worn-out pickup truck to start a painting and home renovation business, for which he has already printed cards. Both volunteer at the shelter, Marcano when the two older children are in kindergarten, Lopez on occasion also during the night.
He likes to greet newcomers in Spanish, to whom he says, "You're free! I am a migrant, I went through what you went through. They are in God's hand."
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Those responsible for the El Paso shelter are not sure how many people will arrive in the coming weeks, how many will be released by U.S. authorities, how many will be deported, how many are still walking through Central America, desperate to find a way to reach the United States.
Venezuelan asylum seeker Luis Lopez shows off the van he is repairing to be prepared when he gets his work permit to start a painting and home renovation business. Andres Leighton / AP
About a mile south of the shelter, at least a half-dozen migrants had set up a makeshift tent at a gate of the border wall.
In recent days, hundreds of people had lined up there to be processed by the Border Patrol. But by late Friday only a handful of Texas National Guardsmen stood guard on the dusty riverbank. By noon on Saturday, the migrants' tents were no longer visible.
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The Associated Press' religion coverage is supported through AP's collaboration with The Conversation US, with funding from the Lilly Endowment Inc. AP is solely responsible for its content.