Political theater vs. daily survival: Inside the dire situation facing migrants bused across US

NEW YORK – On a recent Wednesday morning, Jhonny Ramos stepped out into the 40-degree chill of midtown Manhattan, a bevy of concerns weighing in on him. He hadn't found consistent paying jobs. With his immigration status up in the air, he didn't have work authorization. He needed to rush to the subway to get to a Western Union store in another borough, but the stitches from his recent appendectomy pulled at his skin, reminding him to walk slower so they don't reopen. Then he needed to make it back to the shelter in time so as not to miss his next meal. Most pressing, though: He needed to find a decent pair of pants. Ramos had only a pair of shorts and winter in New York was coming. Jhonny Ramos near his shelter in Manhattan. After being bused from Texas to Washington and then New York, he is learning to navigate the city. The next day, seven miles away in the south Bronx, Ariadna Phillips slammed shut the tailgate of her Kia Sorrento. Soon, she would be helping children find shoes that fit and their parents a place to sleep. Her car was crammed with boxes of donated clothes, shoes, peanut-butter-and-jelly sandwiches, apples and loaves of bread. Her phone was filled with WhatsApp contacts. Every migrant she met, she added to several group chats on the social media site, which fill with new questions each morning about how to survive in a new city. In New York, Ramos and Phillips are on opposite ends of an immigration pipeline that began on the border with a bus ride. For much of 2022, long-haul bus rides have been orchestrated by Republican governors as a kind of political theater: divert asylums seekers out of their states and into liberal coastal cities. For many of the riders, though, that theater becomes a difficult reality: They step onto the buses with the promise of a new life in a new city and step off instantly homeless. Ariadna Phillips, founder of South Bronx Mutual Aid, helps migrants at La Morada, a restaurant in the South Bronx that has become a safe haven for asylum seekers. Since June, more than 20,000 asylum-seekers have arrived in New York City on buses from Texas and Arizona. Other buses have ferried migrants to Washington and Chicago. Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis joined the fray briefly in September when he authorized flights of asylum-seekers from San Antonio to Martha’s Vineyard in Massachusetts, sparking widespread outcry. More:Migrants were promised jobs, free housing before being taken to Martha's Vineyard Officials in Texas and Florida maintain that they only transport migrants who choose to reach those destinations. But after the buses roll away, asylum-seekers are left to navigate a foreign city without speaking the language, find a place to live with no relatives or sponsors to help them and feed themselves with no work lined up. A bus carrying Venezuelan migrants arrives from Martha's Vineyard, Sept. 16, 2022. The result, in New York, means that thousands of those migrants end up in the city's homeless shelter system, already strained near capacity with thousands of New Yorkers who had lost jobs and homes during the coronavirus pandemic and a decades-old housing crisis, advocates said. As of Oct. 24, more than 63,000 people crowded the city's homeless shelter system – a new historic high. Last month, Mayor Eric Adams declared a state of emergency to deal with the crisis and directed workers to erect large temporary tents to handle the overflow. Murad Awawdeh, head of the New York Immigration Coalition, said it’s the largest influx of migrants to the city he’s seen in his two decades working with asylum-seekers. “We quickly realized folks were showing up hungry, with nothing and in need of actual support,” he said. For volunteers like Phillips, assisting this new crush of homeless New Yorkers has become a second full-time job. Delivering food and supplies to spots across town fills her weeknights; each morning her phone is full of new requests. For Ramos, a Venezuelan asylum-seeker, the bus ride to the East Coast has not led to the American dream he envisioned. In the four months since arriving in New York City, he has been shuttled between three homeless shelters, fought off hunger and homelessness and struggled to earn a few dollars doing odd jobs. “I thought life here would be different, would be better,” Ramos said. “My dream has come true – the American dream – but lately it’s been more of a terror.” More:Free bus rides for migrants to Washington, New York and Chicago begin in Texas border town Political theater vs. daily survival The busing of migrants promises to be on the minds of voters as they head to the polls during midterm elections next week. In a national survey taken by the Pew Research Center in August, 48% of registered voters said immigration was a “very important” issue in the upcoming midterms, beating out climate change (40%) and the coronavirus outbreak (28%) as key topics. Venezuelan migrants cross from Ciudad Juarez, Mexico, to surrender to the U.S. Border Patrol, Oct. 13, 2022. A surge in migration from Venezuela, Cuba and Nicaragua in September brought the number of crossings to record highs. For thousands of migrants in newfound homelessness on the East Coast, the situation is less about politics and more about survival. Many migrants have struggled inside the New York shelter system, especially after what is often a traumatic journey of leaving their country and traveling to the U.S.-Mexico border, advocates said. In September, a migrant mom died of suicide while at a city shelter. Ramos has acquired tricks to navigate the city day to day. He uses the free Wi-Fi hotspot at the subway station on 57th Street to send messages via WhatsApp on his smartphone to his mom and sister in Venezuela. He’s learned to navigate the city’s subway lines and stops through the smartphone’s map app. If he has a few bucks for a subway pass, he’ll buy one. If he doesn’t – which is often – he patiently waits for a passenger to exit through the steel gate and slips past the turnstile. Jhonny Ramos rides the subway from Manhattan to Brooklyn, in hopes of fixing an error for a money order he sent to his family. Ramos is staying at the Park Savoy Hotel on West 58th Street, a 9-story hotel converted into a city homeless shelter, a block away from Central Park and just around the corner from One57, the 75-story tower where in 2014 Dell Technologies founder Michael Dell set a Manhattan record by purchasing a $100-million condo. On the cold, Wednesday morning, Ramos needed to get to Brooklyn. He had been to a Western Union there earlier to send some of the little money he had made – $50 – to his sister in Venezuela. But the money hadn't arrived. Now he needed to get to an office to persuade an agent to resend it. He pulled up the train directions on his phone – take the “C” train 16 stops to the Franklin Avenue station – and checked his watch. He needed to be back at the shelter by noon for his free lunch. Probably a flimsy ham and cheese sandwich, but it’d be the only food he’d have until evening. “I’ve missed so many meals,” Ramos said, striding toward the subway station. “I can't do it again.” More:Border shelters warn migrants about human trafficking Bringing relief to migrants Ariadna Phillips drove away from her job at a Bronx middle school, where she teaches English as a new language and computer science, and went directly to La Morada Mexican restaurant on Willis Avenue in the South Bronx. There, she wolfed down a quick dinner of sopa de nopales (cactus soup) with rice and tortillas, then loaded boxes of donated clothes, shoes, peanut-butter-and-jelly sandwiches, apples and loaves of bread into her Sorrento. Ariadna Phillips, founder of South Bronx Mutual Aid, helps two asylum seekers with filling out a domestic partnership agreement so they wouldn't be sent to different shelters hours after they arrived to New York City Thursday, Oct. 19, 2022. A family of recently-arrived Venezuelans wandered into the restaurant and picked through the boxes stacked by the front entrance, looking for shoes for their 9-year-old daughter. Phillips bent down on one knee and helped the girl pull on a pair of pink high-tops. “Ok, in the United States, your shoe size is 4-1/2,” she told her. The girl smiled shyly. For years, La Morada has been the epicenter of migrant advocacy in the Bronx (red letters painted on the front door declare, “REFUGEES WELCOME”), and boxes of donated goods crowd the front entrance. Since asylum-seekers from Texas and Arizona began arriving in the city, the eatery, run by activist and organizer Yajaira Saavedra, has been at the forefront of helping them get enough clothes and food. Saavedra and Phillips, head of the South Bronx Mutual Aid, have led that effort. Each day, after working eight hours as a public school teacher, Phillips, 41, begins her second job as a volunteer in the middle of New York City’s migrant crisis. She checks one of several WhatsApp chats on her phone for updates from migrants around the city, then loads up goods at La Morada and visits shelters where the migrants are staying, alerting them via WhatsApp of their arrival time. At La Morada, a restaurant in the South Bronx, helping migrants find new shoes is just one job for Ariadna Phillips, founder of South Bronx Mutual Aid. After loading her car, Phillips decided which of the various shelters she and other volunteers will visit first. On some nights, her WhatsApp channels chime repeatedly with news of migrants fleeing a shelter, and she and others scramble to find them alternative housing. “They’ve been assaulted, they’ve been robbed, they’ve been kicked out of the shelter at all hours of the night or refused a bed,” Phillips said. “We do rapid response to intercept those people, especially if they’re facing a life threat at the particular shelter they’re at.” The convoy pulled away from La Morada. Phillips checked her phone. 6:12 p.m. It was going to be a long night. Volunteer groups play key role in migrant crisis Asylum seekers gather free food and supplies provided by mutual aid groups outside of their shelter in Manhattan, Oct. 19, 2022. New York City has welcomed migrants for centuries, including unexpected, large influxes, such as in 2014-2015, when more than 15,000 unaccompanied migrant minors arrived in the city, said Awawdeh, the coalition director. Two key differences are that the federal government closely coordinated that influx and nearly all those youth then had someone waiting for them in the city – an uncle, grandparent or cousin – and willing to take them in, he said. Today’s migrants often arrive with no sponsors or community connections, Awawdeh said. Like Ramos, they end up in the shelters. As asylum-seekers continue pouring into New York City, straining the city’s ability to deal with them, volunteer groups such as Phillips’ have been vital in ensuring migrants find a place to sleep, something to eat and have other basic needs met, he said. Other groups, such as Artists-Athletes-Activists, have also helped in the migrant crisis. “They’ve been doing a lot of amazing work,” Awawdeh said. “They’ve been stepping up, providing people with food, clothes, providing them with shelter or connecting with them alternative housing.” Murad Awawdeh, executive director of New York Immigration Coalition, at a rally in August 2022. If a migrant gets kicked out of or feels threatened and leaves a city shelter, organizers scramble to find the person a “sanctuary space” – often a room in a church, a cot in the backroom of a business or someone’s living room couch. The federal government's lack of involvement in the current crisis has been keenly felt, said Shahana Hanif, a New York City council member who chairs the Immigration Committee. Unlike past migrant influxes, the current crisis has been handled mostly by New York City, she said. “We need city, state and federal to be coordinating,” Hanif said. “The city alone cannot shoulder this moment.” For more information, visit us at http://www.beverlyhillsimmigrationlaw.com/index.html.