Migrant Surge Overwhelms Chicago Shelters
May 19, 2023 4:16 PM
Kane Farabaugh
CHICAGO —
After a months-long ordeal fleeing Venezuela, surviving the difficult journey through central America and Mexico to eventually cross the southern U.S. border, asylum-seeker Lismar Pinto arrived by bus at a police station in Chicago, where she stayed on the lobby floor for eight days.
"It was hard, of course, at the beginning, at least for us. We were in a station where there were sexual predators, something like that," she told VOA through a translator. "We arrived with my two grandchildren, a 5-month-old and the other a 5-year-old."
Pinto, who reached the city in late April, is among hundreds of migrants arriving weekly in Chicago, a destination for many like her and her traveling companion, Jose Moran, who hope to start a new life here as their asylum cases wind through the U.S. immigration system.
"The conditions in Venezuela are no secret to anyone, there is no food security, there is no education, there is no health, there are no working conditions," he told VOA through a translator. "It's hard to live there because a salary there is $20 a month. No one can live on $20 a month."
https://www.voanews.com/a/migrant-surge-overwhelms-chicago-shelters-/7101116.html
