“It’s a matter of luck,” says the young man, because while some migrants are seen within a few days, for others the wait can last up to a year.
His wife and two children, ages 8 and 6, stayed in Venezuela, hoping that Jorman would make it to U.S. soil and then ask that his family be allowed to emigrate as well. They exchange messages and he calls them once a week. “They say they miss you, but you have to keep going. What else are you going to do?”
For Jorman, the hardest thing has been leaving his family in Venezuela, but he believes that in his country of origin “there is no future.”
(Photo: Shelma Navarrete)
From Haiti
Flanz Jean, born in Haiti, works in the aisles of the market. He decided to leave the country in the wake of the political and security crisis generated by the 2010 earthquake. “Everything is bad in my country. I need a place where I can work,” he says.
He has been working at a beef shop for three months, where his colleagues teach him how to cut meat and also some Mexican alburs that he is slowly beginning to understand.
He lived in Chile for three years, where he learned a simple, broken Spanish that made communication easier. He spent his days working odd jobs and selling candy on the streets, but during that time he was unable to obtain a residence permit and it became increasingly difficult for him to support himself financially.
Although many Haitian migrants seek to reach the United States to fulfill the “American dream,” for Flanz, Mexico is his chosen destination and he is waiting to find out if he will be recognized as a refugee by the Mexican Commission for Refugee Assistance (Comar). “I am missing documents, they have not given them to me, I am in the process.”
