Resilience in immigrants: Months ago, I had the opportunity to interview a group of Venezuelan women at a migrant shelter in Mexico City.
“We have traveled for months. We have faced all adversities. We have seen dead bodies, defended ourselves from criminals and from nature. The Darien jungle is scary, but here we are. We are going to North Carolina, and we will not stop until we get there,” said one woman, who did not give her name for security reasons.
One by one, they told a similar story. And it is not just the women, but also the men and children. For them, what might be a month-long journey could stretch into months or even years. There is no option for them. They will face whatever it takes to reach their goal, and even when they are reunited with their families, they will not be satisfied.
President-elect Donald Trump has promised mass deportations as soon as he takes office. Trump will need to do more than that to scare them.
A director of a migrant shelter in Tijuana says, “The women here are strong, determined, and resilient. They have already come so far. They dare to dream of a life beyond mere survival.”
A study by Capps, which focused on children of immigrants, found that such children were more likely than native-born children to live in a household that experienced specific hardships, including food insecurity, difficulty paying bills, overcrowded housing, and a lack of health insurance.
This conclusion extends to the entire migrant community. The migration phenomenon has been present in the United States throughout its history, and immigrants have outlasted both Democrats and Republicans. During the pandemic, there were fears that the undocumented would not survive, nor would their families who support them in their countries of origin.
Well, they survived, and in many cases, remittances sent home were greater than in times without a pandemic.
The immigrant community should not be underestimated. They deserve to be treated with dignity. ICE immigration agents can chase them, imprison them, deport them, but they will survive—just as this country has under the worst socioeconomic conditions.
The road to the ‘American dream’: violence, sexual abuse and hell upon reaching Mexico
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