Mercedes* had the first of her three children when she was under 20 years of age. By then she had already been working for a long time: for her, working life began when she was a teenager. A little over 5 years ago, in her 40s, the crisis in Venezuela pushed her to emigrate.
She did so alone, with Peru as her destination. The plan was to support her family, which she left behind, from there. In Peru, she did not find the conditions to settle down.
In addition, she could not stand the distance from her children; so she decided to return to Venezuela to join her family and, 8 months ago, she emigrated again, this time on her way to the United States and with company. Leaving with her were her youngest daughter, 26, her son-in-law, 25, and their three children, ages 5 and 2, and an 8-month-old baby. “We were desperate.
We had work in Caracas, but it wasn’t enough to live on. The violence was also unbearable. We had nothing more to lose and we decided to undertake the journey,” says Mercedes, already in El Paso, in U.
S. territory, at the Casa Sagrado Corazón, a temporary shelter for migrants where she and her family are recovering for a few days from the long journey. To reach the border between Mexico and the United States, they had to cross seven countries: Colombia, Panama, Costa Rica, Honduras, Guatemala and Mexico.
Although the distance in a straight line from Caracas to El Paso is approximately 4,000 kilometers, the trip was much longer and more exhausting. For eigh.