On a recent Saturday night in Brooklyn, I received a WhatsApp message: “Max buenas tardes.” Max good evening.
“Una pregunta estaba en el metro horita Max.” A question: Were you in the subway just now Max?
“Tenías una camisa azul.” You were wearing a blue shirt.
I had met the sender – Xavier, a 22-year-old Venezuelan – just once, eight months prior. He had been living in a Colombian shantytown, plotting a journey to America.
It turned out he had made it.
Necoclí, Colombia
Xavier was among the people I met while reporting on the surge of migrants coming to the United States via Colombia. We were in Necoclí, a palm-tree-lined human trafficking hub.
Necoclí is the last town before the Darién Gap, the gang-controlled jungles of Panama. Migrants come from all over the world to live in Necolí’s shanties, where they sell snacks, recycle, steal – do whatever they can to afford passage to America. The town is full of South Americans, Africans, and South Asians who have come thousands of miles for that purpose. Along its humid streets, vendors sell tents, boots, and lanterns for the trek to the US.
Xavier and his 11 family members were among the people preparing for that trip. They were tired of South America’s poverty and violence, and they had heard the American border was “open.”
In the mid-2010s, Venezuela’s economy imploded under the weight of mismanagement, corruption, and sanctions. Xavier and his now-girlfriend Kerlis didn’t know each other then, but they were both among the millions who ended up unable to find food or medicine, let alone opportunity. They both fled the country in 2016.
The then-15-year-old Xavier found himself wandering the continent in search of work: He started in Colombia but ended up in Peru, Bolivia, Chile, and Ecuador. He worked in construction, restaurants, barber shops – anywhere that would enable him to survive.
Kerlis, meanwhile, stayed in the notoriously dangerous Venezuela-Colombia border city of Cúcuta. Working odd jobs in the violence-ridden barrios, Kerlis became pregnant. In 2018, she had a boy, Greiker.
“As the child grew, I left Cúcuta,” she told me. “I lived in a neighborhood where people were being killed all the time. So I was scared and decided to start backpacking, walking, and then I left Colombia.”
Soon after, she met Xavier. The couple started wandering South America in search of money and safety together.
In mid-2022, they learned that the American border was “open.” Xavier, Kerlis, and her family assembled in Necoclí, where they began saving up to pay the traffickers.
I met and interviewed them during that process and asked how they felt about traveling to the US.
Xavier, in a blue hoodie second from left; Kerlis in white to his right
“Anxious,” Xavier told me.
“Fear,” said Kerlis. “I, as a mother, feel very afraid for my son. Because you don’t know what you’re going to find on the way there. One hears many stories.”
All aspiring migrants to the US have heard the stories: Men robbed and murdered; women raped; children bitten by snakes. The journey to America isn’t for the faint of heart.
The first obstacle is the Darién Gap, where migrants have to survive the human traffickers and the jungle’s wildlife, mountains, and rivers. Next is Central America, where they have to dodge gangs and police, who are often as bad as them. Last is Mexico – the most notorious country on the migrant route. Stories abound of migrants being kidnapped, left in the desert, or jailed after being forced into becoming drug mules.
But Xavier and Kerlis – like millions of other migrants – deemed the risks worth taking.
“We don't want to always stay in the same cycle, unable to improve, unable to climb up,” Xavier said. “We want to work….We want to lift ourselves up.”
“[In the US] everything would improve,” Kerlis predicted. “Everything – everything – education, health, lifestyle – everything is different…It's like we're practically going to erase the whole slate and we're going to introduce a new one, to be better people.
“That is what I think of the United States,” she told me.
Kerlis and Xavier expected America to welcome them with open arms.
Would it?
This is part one of a four-part series. We’ll send new installments each Sunday. The rest of this series is only available to paid subscribers. Subscribe to support our mission and get full access.
