Yali Reinoso, who was a criminal defense lawyer in her native Venezuela, got to Denver the way almost all migrants from South America have. She walked.
For two months, she walked, crossing dangerous rivers that nearly swept her daughter away and trekking miles through the Darién Gap, a roadless and unforgiving jungle that connects Colombia and Panama.
On a train through Mexico, Reinoso saw a woman who had frozen to death as she stowed away on top of a train car. After the woman died, she was no longer holding onto her daughter, who dropped to her death.
Reinoso, her husband and their 16-year-old daughter had waited for 15 days for a train to stop so they and other migrants could climb aboard. They eventually realized the trains would not stop for them, so they stood, perilously, on the tracks to force one to glide to a halt, then piled on.
Reinoso ran out of food on the train, and had to get off quickly one day to buy something to eat for her husband, who has a physical disability because one leg is shorter than the other, and her daughter, who has an intellectual disability. The train started to leave without her.
“So I had to run a lot,” Reinoso said, choking up at the memory. “I had to run and run and run until I was able to catch up with it, but I almost lost my life as well.”
She is among the nearly 40,000 migrants, mostly from Venezuela, who have come to Denver in the past 15 months to escape poverty and political unrest. Reinoso and her family arrived on a bus from Texas on Dec. 26 and have been living in a city-funded hotel room. Their stay, however, expires next week.
Reinoso, who has applied for asylum because of political persecution in Venezuela, cannot practice law in the United States, nor does she have a work permit. She’s helping other migrants apply for asylum and work authorization at All Souls, a nonprofit that has been providing outreach to new arrivals living in hotels and encampments near Tower Road in the northeastern part of the city.
Reinoso spoke to The Colorado Sun this week for a virtual event on the migrant crisis, which has stretched Denver to its limits as the city has taken in more migrants per capita than any other in the United States. About half of the 40,000 migrants who came by bus from the Texas border chose to stay in Denver, while the city bought one-way bus tickets to other destinations for the rest.
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Reinoso, speaking through an interpreter, said she tells her fellow “immigrant brothers and sisters” that she cannot give them legal advice, but she can help them understand the process of claiming asylum and explain the rules surrounding federal work authorization. “What I do to help them is try to get all their documents and paperwork in order,” she said. “That doesn’t necessarily mean that their request is going to be successful. They might face deportation. I try to be as clear as possible with that.”
Under current federal rules meant to expedite the process, migrants who arrived before July 31 are eligible to apply for temporary protected status and work permits. The rest can apply for asylum at the border or after entering the United States, and are eligible to apply for work authorization 150 days after applying for asylum.
Most people are fleeing Venezuela because they are struggling to survive or afford food, Reinoso said. “Venezuela’s economic situation is so bad that people earn $100 a month or so,” she said.
Reinoso fled Venezuela four years ago after she said she was targeted as a political oppositionist by President Nicolás Maduro because of her work to distribute humanitarian aid, including food and medicine, to people who were hungry. She and her family moved to Colombia, where they remained until Colombian authorities agreed to cooperate with Maduro, Reinoso said.
She feared her name would be turned over to Venezuelan authorities, so Reinoso and her family began the trek to the U.S. border.
One of the worst parts of the journey was when Reinoso’s daughter nearly drowned crossing a river in the jungle.
“We had to cross the river holding hands because the current was very, very strong,” she recalled. “But because the river was so strong, and the river was so high, our daughter got loose and she stopped holding hands with us. And it was thanks to other people that were around that we were able to save her.”
Weeks later, they had to cross the Rio Grande into the United States. They used their clothing to cover the wires and spikes intended to keep them out, Reinoso said, then waded into the cold water.
Reinoso and her family arrived at the U.S. border at 7 p.m. on a late-December night, wet and covered in mud. “It was only because we were able to set a fire that we were able to stay alive during that night,” she said.
They turned themselves into the U.S. Border Patrol at 5 a.m. the next day and were taken to detention, where women were separated from men, Reinoso said. After two days, they were released on Christmas Eve and were able to board a bus to Denver.
They chose Denver because they had a friend already living there, but, once they arrived, could not reach the friend. Instead, they went straight to one of Denver’s emergency shelters, then were given a hotel room. Their stay was extended because Denver paused enforcement of its shelter time limits during the coldest part of the winter.
Reinoso said she has requested asylum and is waiting the required 150 days before she and her husband can apply for work authorization. They’re receiving help from nonprofits in the hope of finding an apartment to move to when they leave the hotel next week, she said.
Her journey to the United States is not unique, Reinoso said, adding that new immigrants to Denver have lived a “shared experience.”
“It’s not just my family that suffered,” she said. “Some people lose family on their way here. Some people get kidnapped. Some people get raped. So it’s not it’s definitely not an easy thing to get over here.”
She doesn’t regret coming, though.
“Thank God, we are starting to see the light at the end of the tunnel,” she said. “ We’re hopeful that we’ll get work permits and we’ll be able to find a job to afford living here in the U.S. We’ve been here since December and we’re starting to see the light at the end of the tunnel.”